The $45000 Bertie Question

LAST May I wrote a column for this paper which began with the following: "Somebody out there reading this column at this very moment, possibly someone in New York or Boston, could well be holding the future of Ireland in their hands." We were in the middle of the general election here at the time and Bertie Ahern was running for a historic third term as taoiseach (prime minister). He should have been a shoo-in, I wrote, given the phenomenal wealth created in Ireland during his first two terms as taoiseach over the previous 10 years. But issues about his personal finances had emerged again and were threatening to derail his campaign.

The opening line in the column I wrote in May referred to a mysterious $45,000 U.S. dollars, which may or may not have existed and which may or may not have been given to Ahern as some kind of gift/bribe. He denied having ever been given that amount of dollars or any other amount of dollars.

He refused to go into detail, saying that all the questions about his personal finances would be a matter for the Tribunal of Inquiry to deal with.

Well, he got his chance last week. Ahern, as you know, not only survived the questions raised about his personal finances but made it back into power again.

The Tribunal of Inquiry he was referring to has now been running for an incredible seven years investigating alleged corruption in the nexus between planning and politics in this country. Last week it was Ahern's turn to appear before the tribunal and be grilled by the lawyers.

The mysterious $45,000 was back in the spotlight when he appeared before the tribunal in a grueling and lengthy session. But it's still a mystery.

The tribunal claims the $45,000 is the exact equivalent of one of the amounts Ahern says was mainly a sterling lodgment. He says he never put dollars into the bank.

Of all the questions raised about his personal finances, this is the one he has answered in the most categorical manner. There were no dollars, he has insisted several times.

So if evidence of any wads of dollars were to emerge at this stage, it would be curtains for Ahern. Which leads me to repeat the question I first asked last May. Does anybody reading this column in New York or Boston today have anything at all they might like to say about dollars they might have given to an Irish politician back in 1994?

After Ahern's appearance at the tribunal last week we're still as confused as ever about his finances. What is clear is that he was cavalier and sloppy about his personal finances and accepted loans and gifts from friends in the 1990s that left him open to questions.

But we also know that the amounts of money were relatively small and that, in spite of being at this for seven years, the tribunal has not been able to show any corruption on his part. Ahern will be back before the tribunal this week to answer more questions, but it's unlikely the murky picture will become any clearer.

Having the minute details of his personal finances displayed in public like this is demeaning and embarrassing for Ahern, but really he has only himself to blame. And some of the details are bizarre to say the least, with a suitcase of money being emptied on to his office desk at one point.

Where do the dollars come into the equation? Let me remind you of the various amounts of money Ahern got and some of his bank lodgments, four of which are under scrutiny by the tribunal.

First of all there was what in Ireland is called a "dig-out." Although Ahern had moved out of the family home a few years before, the legal separation from his wife Miriam did not happen until December 1993 and it proved costly to him, as these situations do.

It emerged at the tribunal last week, for example, that he was paying the equivalent in today's money of around *4,000 a month in maintenance. Concerned that Ahern did not appear to have much money of his own, some of his friends decided to give him a dig-out.

Between eight of these businessmen they gave him 22,500 in December 1993, a month after his separation. This is the money that Ahern has insisted was a loan and was paid back last year after it was revealed.

The following year, 1994, Ahern got another 16,500 from four friends in Ireland and close to 8,000 at the now infamous dinner in Manchester attended by Irish businessmen based in Britain, where he was a regular visitor because of his devotion to the Manchester United soccer club.

This was under the microscope at the tribunal last week. Ahern says that this combined 8,000 sterling and 16,500 Irish punts was the source of a lodgment in the bank of an amount that shows up as 24,838.49 Irish punts on October 11, 1994.

But that precise amount, to the last penny, is precisely what the bank would have given at the exchange rate that day for 25,000 sterling. Ahern muddied the water last week by saying that the amounts he lodged may have been slightly different, because he might have spent a bit or added to it. But it looks strange.

Then there's the lodgment that his former partner Celia Larkin made into an account in her name on December 5, 1994, although Ahern accepts that this was his money. The source for this, he says, was the 30,000 sterling which was given to him (in a pile of cash in his office!) by the Manchester-Irish businessman Michael Wall, who was buying a house in Dublin for his friend Ahern to rent.

The lodgment shows up in Larkin's account as 28,772.90 Irish punts, and the same problem applies. That amount is not equivalent to 30,000 sterling on that day, but it is equivalent to exactly $45,000 on that day.

Wall is now saying that he can't be sure that he gave Ahern exactly 30,000 sterling because he spent some of it (the tribunal heard extraordinary evidence about the money being brought over in cash from the U.K. and being kept overnight in a hotel bedroom wardrobe before it was handed over to Ahern).

As well as that, Wall, Larkin and Ahern all told the tribunal they did not count the money at any stage. Again, the coincidence to an exact dollar sum looks very strange. It looks too good not to be true.

What possible connection could there be to dollars? Well, try this. The tribunal's main work started with allegations made by a former property developer called Tom Gilmartin who claimed that to get anything done in Dublin back in the 1990s it was necessary to pay off politicians.

Gilmartin was trying to develop a huge shopping center on the west side of the city but he was forced out by another developer called Owen O'Callaghan who Gilmartin claims was bribing politicians and who, he also claims, gave Ahern two lumps of money amounting to 80,000.

Both O'Callaghan and Ahern have vehemently denied this, and major questions have been raised about Gilmartin's credibility. But there is one awkward fact. The lodgment that is exactly equivalent to $45,000 was made 10 days after Ahern had met several of O'Callaghan's business partners who were American.

Perhaps the most damning thing about Ahern's appearance before the tribunal last week, however, was not his lame explanations for amounts of money that seemed to be something else. It was the fact that all the money was cash.

The explanation offered for this is that Ahern, the then minister for finance and soon to be taoiseach, was more comfortable dealing in cash. His personal finances were very odd at the time.

Even though he was minister for finance he did not have a bank account in his own name (apart from the joint account he had shared with his wife and no longer used). He used to cash his ministerial paycheck in a pub every month, and he accumulated around 50,000 in cash in a safe in his constituency office. The suggestion is that he did this because he was hiding money from his wife after their bitter separation.

The same excuse is used to explain his acceptance of gifts or loans from friends who were concerned that he was about to be taoiseach but had no house and was sleeping rough in his constituency office.

The desire to protect his money in the separation is also suggested as the reason he had the arrangement with Wall to rent the house for a few years before buying it. It would also explain why he says some of his saved 50,000 was spent on the refurbishment of the house even though he did not own it at the time.

Ahern will be back for another grilling by the lawyers this week. And the newspapers here will be full of it again.

But the bottom line on all this is that the voters have already passed judgment by voting him back into government again. In their eyes he may not be perfect, he may have taken some money he should not have taken, but the amounts were not big enough to be a capital offense.

As I said in this column before, all you have to do is look at Ahern's lifestyle to see that he is not corrupt in the way that his mentor Charlie Haughey was. But if the $45,000 scenario turns out to be real, then that assessment could change. It's the $45,000 question.