Larkin’s £30,000 house loan only repaid ‘since Christmas’
The tribunal heard the money was used by Ms Larkin to help buy a house which two of her elderly aunts and another lady had rented for most of their lives that was being put on the market.
Ms Larkin remains the legal owner of the property. At the time of the deal she was the Taoiseach’s “life partner”.
Mr Ahern revealed the 1993 loan was repaid just weeks ago. Party trustees and Ms Larkin had originally agreed the loan would be repaid with the same interest it would have yielded had it remained in the original Irish Permanent Building Society account. “I know the trustees were quite happy that they had an agreement that they could get the money back any time,” Mr Ahern told tribunal lawyer Des O’Neill SC.
Mr O’Neill noted the late Gerry Brennan, Mr Ahern’s former solicitor and one of the trustees, had acted in the transaction for Ms Larkin in the house purchase. Did Mr Ahern know if the trustees were protected against any possible charge on the property, asked counsel. Mr Ahern said he understood if the house was sold the trustees would get their money, or if they needed this money they would be paid. He understood there was an agreement, though possibly not a legal agreement, in the form of a typed document.
Questions were first raised publicly this week at the tribunal about the status of the £30,000 loan. The loan came from a building trust account for the benefit of Mr Ahern’s St Luke’s constituency headquarters. The account was in the name of Tim Collins, a St Luke’s trustee. St Luke’s constituency officers agreed to give the loan and Ms Larkin bought the property for £40,100.
Mr Ahern explained how party officers opened accounts in their own names on behalf of Fianna Fáil. They would have accounts held in the names of people “who are long dead”. When questions were asked they would be answered by whoever was the current officer.
Asked whether he knew at the time Ms Larkin was being advanced the loan, the Taoiseach said that to the best of his knowledge he did not know until after the transaction.
Ms Larkin’s name was made public yesterday in a statement by her solicitor Hugh J Millar to the tribunal. The statement revealed how the elderly ladies could not buy the house out of their own resources and Ms Larkin raised the loan.
Later, Mr Ahern was quizzed about the status of the stg£8,000 cash he received from Manchester-based Irish businessman following a dinner there in 1994. At the time, Mr Ahern was Minister for Finance. Replying to Mr O’Neill, Mr Ahern agreed the nature of money was “an after-dinner presentation”. In his evidence to the tribunal last September, Mr Ahern said: “I asked was it for the party and they said it was a personal donation.”
He explained the contribution, which was given in a Manchester hotel, was “a personal donation in a political sense” because he had visited the businessmen several times.
“Other times, they gave me a gift — books or glass, things like that.”
Mr Ahern was questioned about his interview on RTÉ with Bryan Dobson in September 2006, following revelations in the Irish Times about alleged cash dig-outs from the Taoiseach’s friends.
He told Mr O’Neill he disclosed the Manchester payment then — the first public mention of the contribution — as he wanted to give the full picture and because this would come out in his accounts.
Mr O’Neill suggested the evidence of businessman John Kennedy, who attended the Manchester function, was that the contribution was in the nature of a dig-out to Mr Ahern connected with his marital separation. Counsel said Mr Ahern’s view was that it was a political donation for political purposes and Mr Ahern said yesterday that was still his view.
When Mr O’Neill said Mr Ahern’s financial adviser Des Peelo seemed to be treating this money as a gift, Mr Ahern said nobody said it to him (Taoiseach) on the night in Manchester that he was getting the money on the basis he had a marital problem.
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