Neither a borrower or a lender be

Another day at Mahon – and another “dig-out” contributor who had no idea that the payment was a loan, and another of Bertie’s “repayments” remitted to a charity linked to Bertie Ahern (the Mater).  This time it’s Maureen Gunne, speaking for her late husband Fintan.   Much like Padraic O’Connor, her view is that Bertie was a social acquaintance rather than a friend.  Especially bizarre in this case is that Bertie attended his funeral in 1997 and spoke to her — but never mentioned the loan.  Wasn’t the loan by that point an asset of Gunne’s estate?

The tribunal also got more details on that very messy NCB fake invoice, an episode which NCB will now not touch with a barge pole.  The implication of the manager of the company that issued the invoice is that Des Richardson kept his hands on some of the company’s paperwork and accounts even when he nominally ceded control of the company.  The amounts also don’t quite add up as the tribunal finds outflows of £4,500 and £3,000 after the money came in, but the inflow was £5000 plus VAT (21%=£1,050) — less than the sum of those two payments, and not a nice round number.  There is still much to figure out.