Bertie ‘not impoverished, but not wealthy’ when given handout

FORMER taoiseach Bertie Ahern said he was not impoverished, but not wealthy, when he was given a sum of £16,500 by a group of businessmen in 1994 despite already having savings of up to £70,000.

Mr Ahern told the Mahon tribunal he was given the second of two dig-out payments in a folder when he visited the Beaumont House pub on a midweek evening in the autumn. The money was presented to Mr Ahern, then a finance minister, from the owner of the Beaumont House, Dermot Carew, as well as three other men: Joe Burke, Barry English and Paddy Reilly.

The biggest contributor, Mr English, who contributed £5,000 was “not a close friend” of Mr Ahern and they had only met each other four or five times in the pub with others, said Mr Ahern.

This is despite previously telling Brian Dobson in an interview with RTÉ that the money came from “close friends, people who cared about me” to help him buy a house following his marriage separation.

Lawyer for the tribunal Des O’Neill asked Mr Ahern why he needed this money when he had £54,000 punts in savings as well as up to £19,000 savings in sterling and had taken out a loan of about £19,000 from AIB. Mr Ahern replied that the bank loan was to pay legal fees arising from his marriage separation, The £20,000 was for his daughters’ education and he was saving £30,000 to buy a home.

“So while I wasn’t impoverished, but the position to say that I was wealthy at that stage was not the case,” he said. “And my friends at the time did not think it was a bright idea for me, if I was going to get on with my political life, to stay in the circumstances I was in.”

Mr Ahern was asked why he had not provided the tribunal with information about a £5,000 lodgment to the “Building Trust Account” or B/T account.

Mr Ahern replied that the account was connected with the constituency office and not him personally: “What I have been dealing with in this tribunal, with the greatest of respect, has been my wife’s accounts, my children’s accounts, my accounts. I haven’t been dealing with Fianna Fáil accounts. The Fianna Fáil accounts for Dublin Central constituency are under the direction of the constituency,” he said.

He said staff in his office have sourced the sum to Davy’s stockbrokers.

“They’ve managed in just recent days to find the compliment slip of this to show that it was sent by Davy’s by an individual in Davy’s and that it was wishing me the best of luck in the elections,” he said.