Head over to our T
Bertie wanted a sneak-peak
Read more about: Bertiegate, Fianna Fail, Tribunals 
If there wasn’t such tribunal fatigue not to mention the distractions of summer, today at the Mahon Tribunal would have counted as major news. The main revelation was that, in a move that looks very ill-advised (or not advised at all), Bertie directly contacted an AIB official a few months ago to make sure that there was no surprise testimony about his forex deposits coming — an initiative that sounds a lot like getting one’s story straight with the witnesses before going before the judge. If this was a criminal case, the judge would be hopping mad.
Here’s how the explanation went:
Official Jim McNamara said Mr Ahern did not want find himself being questioned about documents that were new to him.
Under questioning by tribunal counsel, Mr McNamara agreed that looking back it was a most unusual inquiry by Mr Ahern.
Mr McNamara said he told both the Taoiseach and the tribunal that the bank had no conclusive proof that the lodgements involved foreign exchange.
So Bertie knew that there’d be no smoking gun as he prepared his own testimony, testimony which in any case now has been postponed. The revelation also casts new light on Fianna Fáil complaints about tribunal leaks in the run-up to the election, since we now know that Bertie himself was poking around for inside information — and knew that nothing damning was coming.
Today also brought news that Celia Larkin’s appearance will also be postponed to September, as Bertie’s was yesterday. And the bull in the China shop Tom Gilmartin was at it again with the one-liners:
He said the least he could have expected that the government would control what was going on not be soldiers of fortune but soldiers of destiny.
god this is getting serious
were this a trial it would be dangerous indeed but the interesting thing is that in the case of tribunal all evidence is publicly available to interested parties. The need for the Taoiseach to make the call seems limited.
I agree that it may well have been an unadvised call that does more to hint than prove that there is more to this than fishing by the tribunal.
I’m sure the Taoiseach’s office prides itself on rapid response statements but this one is only going to call attention to the holes in Bertie’s new story
‘As a customer of the bank, the Taoiseach is perfectly entitled to seek documentation from AIB in order to assist him in preparing his responses to ongoing queries from the tribunal.
‘The lodgements that the Taoiseach have sought details of took place approximately 12 or 13 years ago.
‘The Taoiseach cannot be expected to have access to all records and details pertaining to transactions from this period at such a remove of time. It is extraordinary to suggest that the Taoiseach cannot talk to his own bank official to seek clarification on existing records relating to his own financial affairs.’
The statement willfully confuses Bertie’s right to access his own bank statements and records, versus what looks strongly like wanting inside knowledge on what a search of the bank’s own information systems might show up that would catch him out. Which looks strongly like adjusting his story to the minimum he can get away with.
Sounds like Berite was asking “What do you know about?”
In return I’d now like to ask “What don’t we know about?”
Bertie, thanks for the heads up that there is stuff in AIB that may not have being uncovered, yet….
Declan you’re absolutely right. Here’s the most fascinating detail from the Irish Times story today
The tribunal heard yesterday that at the time contact was made by Mr Ahern between January and April of this year, Mr McNamara had just begun trying to establish whether the bank’s files indicated whether the three transactions had been preceded by foreign exchange transactions.
Yesterday he agreed with Des O’Neill SC, for the tribunal, that it appeared that at the time he spoke with Mr Ahern, Mr Ahern knew the three transactions had been preceded by foreign exchange transactions.
Mr Ahern did not tell Mr McNamara this, and Mr McNamara did not ask Mr Ahern whether it was the case. At the time of the contact between the bank official and the Taoiseach, neither the bank nor the tribunal had established that the lodgments had been preceded by foreign exchange transactions.
i.e. how did Bertie know more than AIB that there was foreign exchange?
I imagine Bertie has a keen memory for the money that is going into and out of his accounts. It may be selective sometimes when he needs to recall the details, but I doubt he ever truly forgets.