The Mahon Tribunal

For me personally, I agree with your comment on the stunt from FG. I found Enda Kenny to be nothing but patronising and sneery throughout the campaign, and my dislike for the FG party actually grew over the course of this election. This was not helped by the fact that the campaigners for FG who knocked at my door were arrogant and dismissive.
On the other hand, I still find Bertie and my own local FF people to have a certain level of humility (Maybe not the right word). There is no denying that some great things have happened in Ireland over the past number of years, and I dont get the feel from FF that they just expected to be voted back in, I do think they fought for whatever votes they get in this campaign.

I don't know if there really is anything he could do to bring his popularity down he is pretty much Charlie Haughey Mark 2 at this stage, he will always be loved even if something that proves him to be dodgy comes out at some stage he'll always be considered a great leader and a man of the people


I never used to like Enda Kenny but I have grown to respect him over the last year or so and i do think he would make a good leader

It's the old Fianna Fail tactic. The whole Bertie scandal played right into their hands. If there's one thing FF have always thrived on over the years it's having a good grievance to get the diehards to stick with them.

The Mahon tribunal resumes. More **** hits the fan.

Ahern will not be leading this country in 2012.

Jaysus the first day of resumption of the Mahon Tribunial and already his account of things is unravelling. If this keeps up it will be Taoiseach Biffo when the new Dail sits.

I found this especially interesting from that article.

Mr O'Neill also said there is very little documentary evidence to support Mr Ahern's about the source of the five lodgements totalling over £116,000.

Surely if you were in that position you would make sure that you had all the documents in place to confirm these payments were above board?

A thread was closed in the General Election forum which was discussing the Mahon Tribunal and we were directed to the main Politics forum here, but I can't find an existing thread on the Mahon Tribunal if I have missed one please merge.

So I will repost my previous reply to Tristrame for him to reply here

Originally Posted by Tristrame
It's not flawed unless of course you don't believe in due process and believe instead that your conviction is infallable and lets make no mistake about it you are convicting ahern here with scant access to all of the facts save for deliberately sensationalised newspaper selling leaks.

What due process is it you speak of Tristrame is it the same due process that was afforded to Ray Burke, Ivor Callely or Michael Lowry? You see the problem is these TD's didn't need a Tribunal to finish and make findings to force them to resign, I mean Bertie accepted Ivor Callely's resignation for having a free paint job. Are you suggesting Bertie is entitled to more due process than Ray Burke or Ivor Callely were?

Originally Posted by Tristrame
Without access to whatever due process yet to be heard you are drawing your own conclusions.You are of course entitled to do this.

I am drawing no more conclusions than Bertie did when allegations were made againt Ivor Callely!

Originally Posted by Tristrame
See what I mean,do you have a direct line to the opposing sides pc/data and file boxes then? Or are you just using the selective tit bits you can glean from media leaks and satisfying your already made up mind?

Now let me make this very clear Tristrame my opinion here is not based on any newspaper reports, it is based on the transcript from the tribunal and the press release which Bertie released. These are available to anyone, I have linked to both in previous posts. So please stop trying to imply my posts are as a result of reports I have read elsewhere, I'm not sure what your opinon is of me (although I have a good idea) but I do have the intelligence to read transcripts and statments and form MY OWN opinion, if you are hinting otherwise I would rather you just came out and said it.

Originally Posted by Tristrame
Oh so here I see that you are just just blatantly surmising your opinion based on two different collations of information.
1. Aherns answers to media questions and 2.Selected new questions as reported and yet unanswered in the tribunal.
The problem with that is your surmise is flawed because you are using legitimate answers to one set of questions as an assumption that legitimate answers to new questions in the tribunal don't exist..
The instant difficulty I find with that analysis is that Aherns team will have to put their case.
The nature of the tribunal is such that accusations can be outed sans rebuttal like this almost ad infinitum untill it is time for the other side of the case to be heard.

Basing a kangeroo court style commentary on Aherns activities on that is laughably unfair and prejudiced.
It's prejudiced of course because it treats the questions as rhetorical ,convicts the accused and devoids itself of a need to hear the other side, in that it implies the mind is already made up.

Where is the evidence of a dollar transaction by the way besides a question asked as to whether there was one ? And who introduced this dollar anomoly in the first place? It was a lawyer for the tribunal wasn't it-ergo it's Aherns lawers at the tribunal who have yet to explain this. Why didnt they check rubles and Rand as well as all the other available currencies? Have they any paperwork in relation to a dollar transaction and why are you running with that? Is your analysis so brilliant that its better than a tribunal outcome complete with two sides of a story?

My opinion as I stated above is based on what Senior Council for the Tribunal have stated the Tribunal have uncovered during their investigation and what they say Bertie stated during communication with the tribunal which included written communication and an interview. Mr Ahern my not have publically put his case to the tribunal but he has put his case to the public in the form of his statement and he has also put it privately to the Tribunal in both cases he says he did not deal in Dollars and that the money lodged on the 5th of December was in Pounds and Punts. I'm not sure if you aware of the procedure at the bank in relation to recording foreign exchange but they recorded the amount of Sterling exchanged and they recorded the amount of all other currencies exchanged also, the amount of sterling exchanged on the 5th of December 1994 was equal to £1,921.55 punts hence Bertie could not have exchanged what he said he did on that date, the records however show that the ammount of other currencies exchanged that day equalled £28,969.34 punts this would allow for a transaction of $45,000 and other non-sterling exchanges to a value of £196.44 punts

My analysis is based on the bank records provided to the Tribunal which they have outlined in their opening statement and the reports from the Tribunal of interview's and written communication with Bertie and also his statement.

Originally Posted by Tristrame
It's not coming across that you are making an accusation, you are giving us your conviction that that is the case arising out of your own one sided conclusion of a yet unanswered tribunal allegation.

Well I am looking at all the evidence which I can find and I am forming an opinion as Bertie did with Ivor.

In relation to how the sum could have been a mixture of Punt and Pounds remember they didn't accept less than £1 and everyone agrees on the dates and the maximum amount of Sterling was £2003 pounds.

Tristrame wrote:

One speculation being as valid or usefull as the next.
Bertie outsourced the finding of the house to Wall who may or may not have had a contract signed on this house at the time.
This outsourcing was open ended and the discussion included the possibility that Ahern might buy the house.
Ahern and Wall trusted Celia to do the interior designing on whatever house Wall sourced.
None of that would be illegal,quirky yes,unusual maybe, but illegal no.

The house while an odd arrangement is a side issue

Bertie has large sums of money going through accounts controlled by Celia Larkin.
Bertie has to explain where this money came from so as the tribunal can ascertain if the money came from Owen O'Callaghan
Berties explanations are that he saved the money in a safe(although no one else ever seen this money or part of it either in drumcondra or his ministerial office where he claims to have had it)
Berties next explanation is that Wall gave him £30,000 sterling in cash to do up a house which he claims Celia larkin Deposited except the deposit does not equate to the £30,000 sterling it oddly does equate to $45,000 but Bertie denies ever having large amounts of dollars.
The question arises if this is not the £30,000 Wall money what money is it and if it is what hapened to the rest of it.
Berties other explanations are that his friends had a whip around (although one of those denies ever giving money to Ahern and claims the money was for FF)
And then there is the Manchester Money.


While I agree that in normal circumstances the tribunal should be allowed to get on with its business these are not normal circumstances unfortunately or fortunately these issues are in the public domain and they are likely to have an affect on the forming of a new Government.
Ahern has already offered an explanation during the election and it was accepted by everyone( or virtually everyone) however the tribunal has revealed that the explanation offered by Ahern during the election does not stand up to the scrutiny that the tribunal is able to offer as such Ahern must offer an reasonable explanation for the differences in his story or he should step aside.
The election is out of the way now and I hope that the understandable reluctance shown by the opposition parties to engage these matters during an election will now stop and that they will try and hold Mr Ahern to account these matters are so serious that we can not wait for the tribunal to finish its work which could take years.

Tristrame wrote:

The greens are better off outside if they dont want to be decimated as are labour.

Why would they be decimated? You're surely not inferring that perhaps a ff led govt. may not be in the best interests of the country?

Tristrame wrote:

You see here you go again expecting me to have a crystal ball and see what Ahern will say to the tribunal when he will have to reply to these new questions first posed in the tribunal this week.

What do you mean by new questions? Which questions are new? Bert has been dealing with the tribunal since last April according to the transcript, they have been investigating 5 lodgements, yet, now, over 12 months later, he has still not given the tribunal a satisfactory explanation as to where any of these lodgements came from (and that includes the ridiculous 'loan/gift' story/manchester gift money, which the tribunal state was equal to £25K STG, who knows maybe the story was concocted to fit the facts).
I can understand party loyalty and so on (well, actually, I can't), but come on, as a rational human being you must see that Bertie has lied to you and me, to McDowell, to the dail and to the tribunal. Personally, I don't like people making a fool of me - do you?

Tristrame wrote:

Gosh how many more times do you have to expose your position as being one of a mind made up prior to Aherns answers inside the tribunal in it's public session.He has to be cross examined yet by the tribunal as has the tribunals lawyers effectively in a proper rebuttal or clarification of their questions.
Your assumption that there is no answer and that we here on the outside know it all speaks volumes for the back the front way you are looking at the justice of this.

My opinion or mind as you put it is formed based on the what SC for the Tribunal has stated, that includes what he has stated Ahern has said in a face to face interview with the Tribunal and what his accountants have provided in writtern replies on behalf of their client, it is alos based on what the SC has stated Celia Larkin an Michael Wall told the tribunal. It is also based on the statement Bertie Ahern issued through FF.

Tristrame wrote:

No I am distinguishing between the seperate queries the media had from their selective leaks plus the answers Ahern gave to those, AND the entirely new and legitimate path of inquiry this week in the public discourse of the tribunal.
You linked to this weeks transcripts and to this weeks public discourse by the tribunal.
The new "discrepencies" arise out of that and not what Ahern had to answer prior to the public sitting of the tribunal.
Honestly this is a kindergarden distinguishment,you should get with the programme

The new inquiry as you put it is only new to us the Tribunal have been investigating this for some time as is evident from the amount of information they have presented and the charge of $45,000 was put to Mr Ahern before the election and he replied to that charge in his written statment however the facts don't support his statement.

I am not acting as judge or jury I am presenting my opinion based on the facts known to me not media reports, I am simply using my intelligence and common sense to form my opinion and I honestly believe anyone who has read the facts would be of the opinion that his version of events don't match up. If one wanted to speculate on the unknowns they could start thinking about where the cash came from if it didn't come from Wall......

JerkyBoy wrote:

The interesting thing is that if the money Larkin lodged was indeed $45,000 and not £30,000 sterling, then what did Ahern do with the 30k sterling he recieved from Michael Wall?

This could possibly be answered by two of the foriegn exchange transactions that Ahern made in sterling.
The first was a lodgement of precicely 10,000 sterling lodged to Larkin's 2nd account, the one for fitting out the house.
The second is a lodgement of 20,000 sterling lodged to Ahern's own account, which he claims was money unspent from the 50,000 paid to Larkin's 1st account and then subsequently withdrawn in cash back to Ahern.

Ahern admits that he made both of these sterling lodgements, amouting to a total of 30,000 sterling, to the tribunal and they are supported by the AIB dockets.

Now, the tricky part for Ahern is that he claims that he bought this 30,000 in sterling from AIB, and paid for it from the 50,000 that I just mentioned above.

However, AIB has NO record of Ahern making a foreign exchange transaction purchasing this 30,000 sterling. And Ahern also has no documentary evidence to support the assertion that he ever bought the 30,000 sterling from AIB.

So, it's entirely possible that if Larkin actually did lodge $45,000 in dollars as is being put forth by the Tribunal, then the 30,000 that Ahern had lodged to his and Larkin's accounts, 20,000 and 10,000 respectively...could actually have been the 30,000 sterling that Michael Wall gave to him in a briefcase.

From reading the Mahon transcripts...this is what it looks like to me.

If true, it means that Ahern used 10 grand of the Wall money to put into an account for expenses relating to the house...and then he pocketed the remaining 20 grand for himself.

That is exactly what it looks like

The IR£28772.90 is nothing to do with Micheal Wall or at least not to do with the £30,000 sterling Wall gave him.
That is what I meant by the House being a side issue the real and substantive issue is the IR£28772.90 on the face of it it appears highly likely that this was $45,000 which poses a major problem for Ahern as he has said he had no $ transactions.
That is what the tribunal seem to be saying this is not the Wall money so where did this come from. They aso appear to be dubious about the exactly IR£50,000 that appears with no explanation other than savings.

And I repeat, this whole £30,000 stg issue is out by just £1.32!

No, only 2,000 odd in sterling was exchanged that day at the AIB branch, so it's more like he's out by 28,000.

He says he got 30k sterling in cash from Mr. Wall. If he could have only lodged a maximum of 2,000 of it according to AIB, what happened to the rest of the Wall sterling? And where did the rest of the money come from to make up the 28,772.90 punts deposit?

This is when two points become interesting...
Somebody who deposited $45,000 that day would have ended up with exactly 28,772.90 in their account. And:
The AIB branch did almost 29,000 punts worth of non-sterling exchanges that day.

cast_iron wrote:

No, he now claims it was both sterling and punts to the order of aprox £30,000. He doesn't give a breakdown of how much of each, so the math allows it.

Except in order for that to be the case then most of the money would have been in punts over 26,000 punts yet Mr Wall says the money came from cash that his Business in Manchester accumulated and hence he can not show any paper transaction of him withdrawing the money from a bank account.
Does it not seem odd that a coach hire business in manchester would have 26,000 punts in cash. That is completely ignoring the fact that Ahern and Wall said it was cash sterling.

Also is it not a Bizarre coincidence that the exact amount of money deposited on behalf of Ahern on 4 ocassions equate exactly to amounts of punts you would get get in round foreign exchange transactions and that the bank in question on those days did have foreign exchange transactions that would allow for that but on the day that Ahern claims £30,000 sterling was deposited it could not have happened.


Lastly Gilmartin made an allegation that O'Callaghan told him he had paid Ahern £80,000 made up of a £50,000 and a £30,000 and that it transpires that Ahern has £50,000 that is undocumented that he claims to have saved. and then this lodgement which is not possible that it is £30,000 sterling that is very close to 30,000 which if it is not the wall money it is again undocumented and that these add up to very nearly £80,000 and they are in 2 separate amounts just as Gilmartin claimed but he would have had no Knowledge of Mr Aherns accounts when he made this claim but on investigation into Aherns accounts there appears at this stage to be nearly £80,000 that Ahern can provide not documentary prove of where it came from..

Well I think the PD's know their bargaining power is greatly reduced with only having two votes available to them so I think they may do or say whatever is needed to stay in Government.

I would be much more interested to see what the Greens take on this is, I mean they have being saying one of their main policies is to clean up politics even if Biffo says FF don't need anyone to clean them up I think they might be a little worried by the tribunal and what a vote for Bertie as Taosieach would look like.

I believe the Taoiseach is in Berlin today for talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.