Ahern ‘kept bundle of cash more than inch thick in office’

WHEN he was finance minister, Bertie Ahern kept a bundle of cash of more than an inch thick in a plastic folder in his government office, the Mahon Tribunal heard yesterday.

His private secretary Brendan Ward could not say how much money the banker’s pouch contained.

“I made a rule for myself that I would not take it out or count it. I could see there was cash in it,” he said. Mr Ward, who joined the National Economic and Social Council in 2002 and is head of administration there, became Mr Ahern’s private secretary in November 1991 when he became finance minister. Between 1998 and 2002 he was the private secretary while Mr Ahern was Taoiseach.