PD worries centre on USD$45,000 - Irish Independent

[the-analyst2007]

The Irish Independent is devoting it's front page headline tomorrow on the unusual circumstances surrounding the STG £30,000 cash Michael Wall aledgedly paid to Bertie Ahern.

Tonight on The Week in Politics, Mr McDowell voiced concern about whether in fact this transaction ever occurred.

As I suggested in the wee hours of this morning, the real nub of Macca's woes is the tidy sum of USD$45,000.

The story that Bert gave to the Tribunal is that Michael Wall came from Manchester in December 1994 with a briefcase of cash containing STG£30,000.

This money was supposedly lodged to Ms Larkins AIB account. However the amount lodged was infact the bizzare figure of STG£28,744.
That very same day, the AIB Forex rate for USD/STG made this figure EXACTLY equivilant to USD$45,000.

A number of questions arise:

(1) What is the probability of this occuring? Im thinking it's along the same lines as winning the lotto...very, very, very remote.

(2) It stretches the imagination that Michael Wall would travel in December 1994 from Manchester with a briefcase full of cash for the purposes of doing up a house that he did not own (it was bought in mid-1995).

(3) Did Michael Wall put two two pound sterling coins in the brief case, or was it four single ones?

As Sean O'Rourke said tonight: If it walks like $45,000, looks like $45,000 and quacks like $45,000.....then it is $45,000.

It should be highlighted that Bertie Ahern has denied receiving payments from Owen O'Callaghan or any other payments relating to the Mahon Tribunal's investigations.

May I also remind people that early this morning I recalled an article written by Jody Corcoran last year. In it he claimed that Mr Ahern travelled to Los Angeles, USA in 1994.

While I was looking for the article on Unison, I came across a better one written last year by Frank Connolly. The meaty bit is contained in the final paragraph: http://www.village.ie/index2.php?option ... =1&id=2923

[The Trinity Politick]

Essentially, is this relevant though?

[the-analyst2007]

Well in plain english, Macca seems to be VERY concerned that Bert has spun one yarn too many.

This is VERY relevant.

[Pax]

The tribunal will also investigate visits by Bertie Ahern and Albert Reynolds to Los Angeles in 1994 where they were scheduled to meet with a US finance broker to discuss plans by Owen O'Callaghan, Liam Lawlor, Frank Dunlop and architect Ambrose Kelly to develop a football stadium at another site in Balgaddy in Clondalkin. Niall Lawlor, who will also give evidence at the tribunal next year, worked at the brokerage Shilton O'Connor at the time of the visits by the Taoiseach and his predecessor.

The plot thickens...

[Paddylekker]

Is this the Sindo piece you're talking about?


Sunday April 8th 2007

HUGH Coveney concluded his business chat with publican Denis Quinn - the last man to see him alive - and went for his usual walk with his dogs at Robert's Cove in Cork.

It was shortly after 11am on Saturday March 14, 1998, six months after the Moriarty tribunal was set up, and just five months after Flood was established. It's unlikely these matters were on the mind of the 62-year-old former Fine Gael minister as he negotiated the familiar sheer cliff edge he had walked so many times before.

Eight hours later, when her husband had failed to return for a scheduled dinner party with friends, his wife Pauline raised the alarm. Some time later his body was found. His loyal Scottish terrier, Sasha, had remained below the cliff site, where Mr Coveney is believed to have fallen. By torchlight, they had found the dog barking near the base of Robert's Head.

"She was in a very distressed condition," it was later reported.

The previous day the gentleman politician had changed his last will and testament - a curiously timed act which, when it was revealed, led to speculation that the politician of a merchant prince family had taken his own life.

If the tribunals were not on his mind, then maybe, it was speculated, his imminent unmasking as the holder of a notorious Ansbacher account might have been. Or was he perhaps still ruminating on his fall from grace just three years earlier?

In 1994 John Bruton, the then Taoiseach, first appointed Coveney to the cabinet as Minister for Defence. A year later hewas politically assassinated by ruthless opportunists, those his former colleague Michael Lowry would now say were "politically motivated". His demotion to a junior ministry came after allegations of "improper contact" witha businessman.

The suicide rumours had upset his family, but they were reassured when an inquest left little roomfor doubt. The family's patriarch had died as a result of accidental drowning.

Yet, in Fine Gael, there was then - and still remains - huge resentment that a popular and respected man had, three years earlier, been forced to fall on his sword.

I was at the Bruton family pile in grassy Dunboyne on a balmy Sunday evening when Coveney was obliged to capitulate. Earlier that day it had been reported that, as Defence Minister, he had suggested to the then chairman of Bord Gais that a company of which he was a partner be kept in mind for a State contract.

Owen O'Callaghan, a property developer also of the Cork merchant prince classes - though not quite as blue of blood - was on the board of Bord Gais when the revelation emerged.

Since he was of Fianna Fail stock and a diehard party supporter - financial and otherwise - the finger of suspicion for leaking news of the "improper contact" immediately turned towards him.

He has always denied any part in the skulduggery, but many did not believe his protests -particularly those in Fine Gael, and especially not Michael Lowry, the Minister for Transport, Energy and Communications at the time.

Lowry would later take up a cudgel on his own behalf, certainly, but also, many suspected, on behalf of Coveney, his fallen colleague. He went to war with O'Callaghan, his architect friend Ambrose Kelly and Dermot O'Leary, another Fianna Failer who knows his way around the semi-State circuit and around CIE in particular.

O'Leary was the backroom Fianna Fail man who had organised several fundraising events to which O'Callaghan had contributed huge sums of money. One of O'Callaghan's companies, Riga Ltd, paid more than €150,000 to the party, or its election candidates, in six years to April 2000.

Most of that was paid in 1994, around the time the then Taoiseach, Albert Reynolds, and the then Finance Minister, Bertie Ahern, had met O'Callaghan's bankers in Los Angeles when he was proposing a €75m football stadium in Neilstown in west Dublin, not far from the notorious Quarryvale site.

With revenge in mind - though he argued that he was trying to protect taxpayers' money - Lowry attempted to overturn another deal which had seen O'Callaghan secure a prime CIE site at Horgan's Quay in Cork.

There was talk of cosy cartels and even of surveillance.

In the twilight world where business meets politics and law, many a knife is sharpened.

The media plays its part, hungry dogs occasionally thrown a titbit when it suits the suits who control the country. (For Lowry, they chose Sam Smyth. For Bertie, the Irish Times is the favoured one.)

In the end Lowry was gutted, "politically naive" he now admits; he put his head too high above the parapet. Lowry was forced to resign when details emerged from the Law Library of his unorthodox business relationship with Ben Dunne.

O'Callaghan, meanwhile, went from strength to strength, accruing a vast fortune as he secured and invested in prime property sites around the country. Blessed with political contacts and a sharp business acumen, he made his money from further developments such as the Golden Island shopping centre in Athlone and, of course, from Quarryvale in west Dublin.

Mr Ahern met with O'Callaghan on November 10, 1994; he has said that O'Callaghan "made representations" to him about the Golden Island site. The site was designated for, and subsequently awarded, substantial tax incentives by Ahern just hours before he left office after the collapse of the Fianna Fail-Labour Government on December 14, 1994.

But perhaps the daddy of them all in terms of controversy, the notorious Liffey Valley centre, is now finally coming centre stage. The dramatic story behind what was called Quarryvale will unfold next month, the highlight of the tribunal's tortuously slow investigations - investigations which the Government was recently accused of trying to thwart when the issue of lawyers' fees arose.

In the middle of the Quarryvale saga is Tom Gilmartin, another property developer hewn from harder times. Gilmartin can be his own worst enemy, a man fond of shooting from the hip, lashing out at all around him - at pillars of the State, the banks, the politicians, those, as he sees it, who strangled his ambitious plans to reshape the western side of Dublin, and handed on a plate his grandiose dream to one of their own, Owen O'Callaghan.

A west of Ireland man, Gilmartin is blunt to the point of being brutal, embittered to the point of vengefulness, and a man with an explosive tale to tell. Yet for all his advancing years he retains a sharp mind. For almost 10 years now, the mere mention of his name has sent a shiver through the corridors of power. That is why the people he has in his sights, those self-same pillars of society, have tried to cut him down.

But Gilmartin and the planning tribunal which seems so dependent on him, are resilient.

They scored another notable success in the Supreme Court recently, paving the way to finally opening the Quarryvale module just weeks before the scheduled general election.

The timing could not be more sensitive. Because at the centre of it, too, is Bertie Ahern, the only Taoiseach forced to go to the Circuit Court to clear his name. He did this when a character, Dennis 'Starry' O'Brien, claimed O'Callaghan had given Bertie £50,000 when he was Minister for Finance. This allegation disintegrated under scrutiny in the court, and Bertie emerged whiter than white.

Gilmartin, too, has made such a claim, but has so far been unable to substantiate it. That is the work of the tribunal, which is why it is so doggedly pursuing the Taoiseach, even all the way to the family law courts, where it wants to have a look at the separation agreement he struck with his wife, Miriam. If Ahern easily saw off 'Starry' O'Brien, he has had more difficulty explaining vast sums of money he actually did receive, from friends and businessmen, when he was controlling the country's purse strings.

The planning tribunal found that Bertie received four large and unusual sums in 1994. These sums were £22,500, about £8,000, £16,500 and, of course, £50,000 - making a total of £97,000.

The first three sums were, he said, dig-outs from old friends and businessmen to ease his financial burden at the time his marriage had ended. Now attention is refocusing on the mysterious £50,000 - which the Taoiseach said were personal savings, kept not under his pillow or in a shoebox when, as Finance Minister, he had no bank account, but in a safe.

Is this the neatly rounded sum wherein lies the political demise of perhaps the greatest Taoiseach of modern times? The tribunal's investigations will tell.

That sound you heard in the distance so recently was again of blade on whetstone, slow and deliberate strokes emanating from the twilight zone.

When news of the payments to Bertie emerged in the Irish Times on September 21 last, it looked for a while as if the Taoiseach had been knifed from behind.

But the master who had honed his survival instincts at the feet of Charles J Haughey would not be stiffened. An emotional television appearance, and a sweaty embrace of the Progressive Democrats' new leader, Michael McDowell, was enough to see him through - for the moment at least.

Now they are coming for him again. This time they hope to finish the job, botched and messy from before when the Opposition failed to twist the knife.

With the election looming, the Taoiseach is more aware this time, more alert. He has declared war on his enemies, those he believes had a hand in the leaking of information - on his quite bizarre financial affairs - provided by him to the tribunal when it was on his trail. Ahern hopes to get them before they get him, if there is anything to get him on.

The Supreme Court's clearing of obstacles facing the planning tribunal, put there quite legitimately by O'Callaghan as he seeks to protect his good name, came at some cost for Gilmartin.

The former Progressive Democrats activist, Mr Justice Adrian Hardiman, in a minority judgment, delivered a devastating account of perceived inaccuracies in Gilmartin's evidence to date, evidence given in both public and private session. In his judgment, Hardiman - who in the past had, coincidentally, acted as lawyer for Liam Lawlor at the tribunal - has exposed some of Gilmartin's undoubted verbiage.

Perhaps the most shocking of the revelations contained in Mr Justice Hardiman's judgment is that, at one stage in his dealings with the tribunal, Gilmartin alleged that - in the words of Hardiman - "the demise of a deceased office holder was brought about indirectly by Owen O'Callaghan".

The office holder in question was the late Hugh Coveney, the man who fell to his death nine years ago. The word "demise" is unintentionally loaded. It could mean anything, but in this instance it is now accepted that it means the political downfall of a decent man. The Coveney family will be understandably upset that a sense of mystery, real or imaginary, has again been cast on their patriarch's death.

Gilmartin, however, has nothing further to add, only that he claims O'Callaghan had told him he was behind the leaking of Coveney's "improper contact" with a businessman. If that is all it is, then the Coveneys can rest easy, because it is nothing more than they ever suspected.

ON ANOTHER front, though, behind the scenes, behind the headlines of the health service, of overcrowded classrooms, of the reform of stamp duty, the battle of Bertie Ahern's political life is being slowly played out.

Who is out to get him, and why?

The why is easy: somebody, somewhere does not want him re-elected Taoiseach. The who is imponderable.

In his judgment, Mr Justice Hardiman also laid bare the tactics of the planning tribunal, which for so long has caused some resentment among those it has targeted, Bertie included. Hardiman, rather convincingly, accused the tribunal of suppressing information which may be damaging to Gilmartin's credibility.

But it is not the suppression of information which so upsets the Taoiseach, rather it is the leaking of it. He has effectively accused the tribunal of leaking the details of his financial affairs, a claim the tribunal has stoutly denied.

But leaked they were from somewhere, clearly an impeccable source, to the Irish Times, whose editor Geraldine Kennedy, is an experienced journalist who knows her away around a political minefield. She is the woman, after all, who once had her telephone tapped by the State.

For eight months now, while The Boss remains at a remove, his associates have been trying to track down the leaker.

On Christmas Eve last the Sunday Independent reported that Bertie Ahern's associates believe a file on the Taoiseach's personal finances was delivered to Geraldine Kennedy's home by a lawyer whose identity is known to them.

Under the headline, 'FF knows who ratted on Bertie payments', we disclosed that a crucial witness was said to have come forward with information that a lawyer delivered "what must have been" the file shortly before the story broke in September.

The witness, it was claimed, lives close to Kennedy at Donnybrook in south Dublin, but is reluctant to go public with his claims.

Kennedy regularly entertains members of the legal profession at her home. So it may well be that we are witnessing the contrivance of conspiracy theories here.

But we also reported Bertie's associates' claims that because of who the alleged visitor to Kennedy's home was, it could only have been Bertie's file that was stuffed through the editor's letterbox.

Clearly, Kennedy believes Mr Ahern's associates are talking nonsense. "I don't know what they are talking about in terms of people coming to my home. In terms of how we got the story, we told all of that to the Mahon tribunal. Colm Keena received the information, not me."

Now further information has come to light. It will surprise some, disturb several, but enlighten many that the information came to Bertie's associates through none other than Owen O'Callaghan's associates. And so we are coming full circle.

The Sunday Independent is now told that, in the Law Library, two legal eagles recently had a quiet chat.

Word was fed back to O'Callaghan of Kennedy's mysterious visitor, envelope in hand.

His or her identity remains unknown to us, but Bertie's associates have stated that their information is accurate "because of who the lawyer is who dropped it off".

Says Kennedy: "If all of that is true it means we perjured ourselves to the Mahon tribunal, and we did not perjure ourselves."

The intrigue does not end there.

Enter one Frank Dunlop. Dunlop told a Bertie associate some time ago of a separate visit to Kennedy's home by another lawyer who, at the time, would have had some knowledge of the payments. What is even more intriguing, some would say sinister, is that this lawyer also rang Kennedy's home from a public payphone.

If this information is accurate, it can lead to only one conclusion: that central figures in this increasingly dramatic saga are possibly under surveillance (again?) and telephones may be tapped again.

Perhaps that is a leap too far, but it is an indication of the level of paranoia that exists behind closed doors, and an indication that the final scene of a political play a decade in the making and Shakespearean in proportion, has yet to be played out.

Jody Corcoran

http://www.unison.ie/irish_independent/ ... &printer=1

[the-analyst2007]

No, it was around August 2006 just before Bertigate I broke.

The reason I remembered it was because it was unusual in the sense that there was notting sensational about it.

The whole article just focused on the trip by Ahern to LA.

[The Trinity Politick]

It would make a lot of sense in a way.

Micky finds out this information. Confirms it in some way or another with his "contacts" and decides that he wants to be the last man standing when Bertie is ousted rather than sit in the sidelines.

The PDs know whats going on now. They have the facts. Micky wants to protect his party but in government. Why should they walk when they've done nothing wrong, sorta defense.

Micky looked bad on WIP. He looked rattled and angry. He won't be taken out. He must know.

[Universal_001]

So what was he using the dollers for??

[Paddylekker]

It was a stamp duty issue.

[pfkf]

It was a stamp duty issue.

No, No the money was just resting in his account