Renewed controversy over Ahern finances
Renewed controversy surrounded the finances of Taoiseach Bertie Ahern today after the Mahon Tribunal raised questions over cash deposited in his account in the 1990s.
A senior bank official told the public inquiry she "doesn't understand" explanations for a foreign exchange transaction made on Mr Ahern's behalf in 1994.
The Taoiseach is due to appear before the Mahon Tribunal on Thursday amid claims that the transaction he says involved Stg£30,000 might have involved $45,000 US, despite his denials that he ever dealt in dollars.
Mr Ahern has insisted that his ex-partner Celia Larkin converted almost Stg£30,000 into Irish punts - a sum he says was given to him by the owner of his rented Dublin home for refurbishment work.
Allied Irish Bank's (AIB) foreign exchange expert Rosemary Murtagh said in previous evidence at the Mahon Tribunal that the deposit of £28,700 in Irish punts exactly equated to the conversion of a sum of $45,000 US.
At the time she also agreed with Mr Ahern's lawyers that it was possible to calculate the transaction in sterling.
Mr Ahern, who is due to give evidence on Thursday and Friday, denies US dollars were ever involved.
His legal team has claimed that it can show how certain mathematical permutations can be used to arrive at the sterling-Irish punt amount for the transaction.
But Ms Murtagh today told the inquiry, sitting in Dublin Castle, that she has not been given any details of this "hypothesis", first outlined by Mr Ahern's lawyers in July.
She said: "I don't understand the hypothesis. Obviously they have done something with figures which I haven't seen."
She told tribunal counsel Des O'Neill SC: "I understood what they were saying but I haven't seen anything to see what they meant."
Manchester businessman Micheal Wall, who Mr Ahern said gave him the money to refurbish his rented home, is due to give evidence this afternoon.
