Ahern’s story of being stuck for cash in 1994 continues to crumble. The Tribunal does, I believe, think the £16,500 and the £8,000 payments to be non-existent. The £25,000 stg equivalent is just too much of a coincidence.
The Irish Times seems to have got their sums wrong too, or at least they are forgetting some of the cash. Colm Keena writes:
The Taoiseach Bertie Ahern had £70,000 on deposit when he accepted a cash contribution of £16,500 from four supporters in September 1994, the Mahon tribunal heard yesterday.
Technically correct. But as far as I can tell there was the other £20,000 in the name of his daughters, which was from his alleged cash savings. So to be clear the lodgments and savings as far as I can gather were:
December 1993, £22,500 lodged to SSA
April 1994, SSA topped with £30,000, remainder going to current
August 1994, Daughter lodgment, £20,000
PTSB account, £20,000
Addition of the 16,500 + 8,000 (£24,838.49) or 25,000 stg
Total: £117,338.49.
And still he couldn’t afford a house, despite being able to get an unsecured loan from AIB for almost £20,000 just nine months earlier. Why did the bank not need security? “He was the Minister for Finance,” said AIB.
And his rags to riches whiparound plumber pal McKenna (Marlborough recruitment scam)became a multimillionaire, went public, and scammed a fortune out of small investors-without any dig out from Fianna Fail!.