I haven't posted anything since December 21. That's a fair gap, or a hiatus as we call it in my new place of employ.
Since then a a lot of water has passed under the bridge
Or as Terry Flanagan might put it, a lot of water has passed under the bridge.
Well it hasn't really.
I signed off with Bertie back then and am - surprise, surprise - locking back in with Bertie.
The Sunday Business Post poll findings on his Tribunal evidence was enough to completely wilt that surge (well the slight increase of one percent)in Fianna Fail's support levels.
Fifty three per cent don't believe Ahern's evidence. Half of those surveyed no longer trust him to run the country. And if he is found to have lied to the Tribunal, seven out of ten think that will merit the walking of the political plank.
Earlier this week, I did a piece on Fianna Fail's grassroots. Unsurprisingly, they are all four square (110 percent as they all say) behind him, irrespective of how deep or how suppurating the slurry he has to wade through.
They reminded me of the final scene in 'Some Like it Hot' with Jack Lemmon (still in drag) and the the little fellow who has fallen for his female persona. Jack Lemmon , tries to break it him gently, giving a list of reasons why they can't marry.
Finally, he says: "I can never have children", to which the suitor cheerily responds: "I don't care."
Damn it all, says Lemmon in exasperation as he rips of the wig, I'm a man.
To which the suitor replies cheerily: "I don't care."
And that's how loyal the FF grassroots are!
We have written endlessly here about the longevity of the anorak.
But the 30 grand to Celia; the melding of political donations with personal cash... all that is potentially more damaging than the dig-out loans and the eight grand from Manchester.
For the first time we sense that this remarkable political journey will reach an end sooner than marked out on the itinerary. The land that Charlie McCreevy got after the locals in 2004, will be given this time to the giver of the land. There will be no Inchdoney strategy this time round. It's an exit strategy and it will be timed for sometime around the local elections next year.
Showing posts with label Celia Larkin. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Celia Larkin. Show all posts
Monday, March 03, 2008
Thursday, September 13, 2007
INSIDE POLITICS - CELIA LARKIN'S EVIDENCE
Well, what we witnessed yesterday was the Matthew, Mark, Luke and John of political evidence.
Early during Celia Larkin’s testimony to the Planning Tribunal yesterday, it was put to her that there were now four different versions of how Micheal Wall had given Bertie Ahern £30,000 and how it came to be lodged into a new bank account opened by her.
All day, despite the glaring inconsistencies between the versions, Celia Larkin insisted that there may indeed be four versions but, like the New Testament and its four Gospels, they may differ in detail but the essence, the truth, will always remain the same.
And every time Tribunal lawyer Henry Murphy dared to ask her about the minutiae of what had occurred, a querulous and testy Ms Larkin responded with the fervour of a Born-Again Christian being challenged on the existence of God.
The Taoiseach’s former ‘life-partner’, as Ms Larkin described herself twice, came into the witness box yesterday with one mission – to show that every penny that she has been asked to administer on behalf of Bertie Ahern and Micheal Wall had been accounted for.
But the problem that Ms Larkin faced is that this is not what the Tribunal is concerned with. It’s investigating where the money came from in the first place, and why it went through such a convoluted series of transactions, being passed through new bank accounts in Ms Larkin’s name, being exchanged back and forth from sterling to Irish punts, and being stashed in hot presses, safes in constituency offices and wardrobes in North Dublin hotel rooms.
Underlying all this, is that notwithstanding Bertie Ahern’s self-projection as anorak man, who cares for nothing other than a game of football and a couple of pints, the sums of money involved were vast. The monies allotted for refurbishment and renovation on an almost-new Drumcondra home (£80,000 in total) would have bought a three-bedroom terraced house in Phibsboro at the time.
What the Tribunal was investigating yesterday were three separate financial transactions that Ms Larkin conducted on behalf of Mr Ahern in late 1994 and in 1995.
The first was the lodgement of the £30,000 sterling that Mr Wall gave to Mr Ahern in early December, ostensibly for renovation and refurbishment of an almost new house that he had not yet fully bought. That was lodged into a new account Ms Larkin opened in December 5 1994.
The second was another account opened by Ms Larkin on the day in her name. That account contained £50,000 that were transferred from two of Mr Ahern’s accounts. Six weeks later, Ms Larkin withdrew the whole lot and gave it to Mr Ahern.
And finally, there was a sum of £10,000 sterling and £2,000 Irish that Ms Larkin into another account in June of 1995.
Ms Larkin’s poise and composure were as immaculate as her appearance. In almost five hours of evidence, there was no stumbling, no ‘ums’ and ‘aws’. She was also (refreshingly) familiar. This wasn’t a strategy. Anything lawyerly will always be po-faced but she brought a degree of levity by insisting on addressing her interrogators Henry and Des, as if she were a primary school teacher gently bringing unruly seven-year olds to order.
Sure, she had a few rough passages. Certainly, there were a couple of elongated pauses when she was faced with complex or tricky questions. But as the day wore on, she became more testy, challenging the basis of a line of enquiry, or accusing Mr Murphy of being pedantic. At one stage, when he accused her of conveniently going blank in her recollection, she acidly responded by asking him could he remember what he did last Friday at 9.02?
But her major problem was this. Why all the different and contradictory versions of the events and the transactions?
“It’s a fairly simple matter; there can not be that much of a mystery to it,” said Mr Murphy at one stage in an obvious piece of observation.
Let’s examine one of the lines of inquiry. Ms Larkin’s first account to the Tribunal was in June 2006 when she supplied it with a memo of her recollection. At that time, she said that Michael Wall had deposited the £30,000 sterling that he said he gave to Bertie for the house.
But subsequently she changed that, and introduced a new narrative. The following month, she was interviewed by Tribunal lawyers. At that stage she said it was she who lodged the money in a new account in her name. And she said that the money was handed to her by Michael Wall in the office of the late Gerry Brennan, Mr Ahern’s solicitor who also acted for Mr Wall in relation to dealings over the house.
And then in July this year, just as she was due to give evidence to the Tribunal, it all changed again. Now she was saying the money had not been handed over in Mr Brennan’s office after all but that she had collected it from Mr Ahern’s constituency office, St Luke’s, and lodged it into the bank.
And then yesterday, there was a further ‘clarification’. Now she remembered that she was in St Luke’s on the Saturday and had witnessed Mr Wall putting the cash on the table and Mr Ahern taking the bundles of sterling and going to a back room to put them into the safe. And then the following Monday, she collected a briefcase and lodged it. Up until now, she had made no mention of witnessing the money being handed over in St Luke’s. But these new details came only a day after Michael Wall had said as much to the Tribunal in evidence.
There were similar inconsistencies in relation to the second account she opened on December 5, the one for £50,000. In earlier evidence and communication with the Tribunal she could not recall exactly how the £50,000 came to be withdrawn in January 1995, only a month later. But in her communication with the Tribunal in July of this year, she remembered that she had collected it in a parcel or a bag. And yesterday for the first time, she recalled that it was Bertie Ahern who had given her the lift to the bank that morning and waited outside in the car. Suddenly the sketch writers in the Tribunal had struck gold – Bertie the Getaway Driver was born.
It was deeply unsurprising that the Tribunal lawyers would hone in on the inconsistencies of the accounts, and the apparent credibility gaps. What was surprising was that Ms Larkin considered this to be deeply surprising, as she objected with increasing force to the minutiae and the forensics.
She was not convincing, however, when explaining how her memory and recollection had improved over the past 15 months. Her strategy was two-fold. She insisted that the first interview by lawyers was informal and an information-gathering exercise. She had talked freely and openly, she insisted, but had only given the gist without going into detail. It was only later that she was able to piece together the rest.
And it was when Bertie Ahern told her that all these events took place on the weekend of his annual fund-raising dinner and on the weekend before he might have been Taoiseach (Dick Spring pulled the plug on that the following Monday morning, she reminded everbody twice) that she remembered everything in more detail.
But that alone couldn’t bring back such a flood of recollection, could it? The most interesting exchange was between her and Judge Gerard Keyes who asked her had anyone assisted her in furnishing the Tribunal with the fuller clarifications. Ms Larkin seemed to suggest conversations with Bertie Ahern but when Judge Keyes probed, all he had reminded her of was that the weekend was the fateful weekend before Dick Spring pulled the plug. Less than convincing, given the extent of the new detail she couldn’t recall last year but could suddenly recall with precision in July of this year and yesterday.
But in the end, there were no torpedoes, no scuppering, no big rips in the Anorak. We just saw more of the ongoing smoke and mirrors show that is Bertie Ahern’s personal finances. The inconsistencies remain. And following Celia Larkin’s evidence, there were the same number of loose ends. We’ll probably have more by the time the Taoiseach himself finishes his testimony on Friday.
Early during Celia Larkin’s testimony to the Planning Tribunal yesterday, it was put to her that there were now four different versions of how Micheal Wall had given Bertie Ahern £30,000 and how it came to be lodged into a new bank account opened by her.
All day, despite the glaring inconsistencies between the versions, Celia Larkin insisted that there may indeed be four versions but, like the New Testament and its four Gospels, they may differ in detail but the essence, the truth, will always remain the same.
And every time Tribunal lawyer Henry Murphy dared to ask her about the minutiae of what had occurred, a querulous and testy Ms Larkin responded with the fervour of a Born-Again Christian being challenged on the existence of God.
The Taoiseach’s former ‘life-partner’, as Ms Larkin described herself twice, came into the witness box yesterday with one mission – to show that every penny that she has been asked to administer on behalf of Bertie Ahern and Micheal Wall had been accounted for.
But the problem that Ms Larkin faced is that this is not what the Tribunal is concerned with. It’s investigating where the money came from in the first place, and why it went through such a convoluted series of transactions, being passed through new bank accounts in Ms Larkin’s name, being exchanged back and forth from sterling to Irish punts, and being stashed in hot presses, safes in constituency offices and wardrobes in North Dublin hotel rooms.
Underlying all this, is that notwithstanding Bertie Ahern’s self-projection as anorak man, who cares for nothing other than a game of football and a couple of pints, the sums of money involved were vast. The monies allotted for refurbishment and renovation on an almost-new Drumcondra home (£80,000 in total) would have bought a three-bedroom terraced house in Phibsboro at the time.
What the Tribunal was investigating yesterday were three separate financial transactions that Ms Larkin conducted on behalf of Mr Ahern in late 1994 and in 1995.
The first was the lodgement of the £30,000 sterling that Mr Wall gave to Mr Ahern in early December, ostensibly for renovation and refurbishment of an almost new house that he had not yet fully bought. That was lodged into a new account Ms Larkin opened in December 5 1994.
The second was another account opened by Ms Larkin on the day in her name. That account contained £50,000 that were transferred from two of Mr Ahern’s accounts. Six weeks later, Ms Larkin withdrew the whole lot and gave it to Mr Ahern.
And finally, there was a sum of £10,000 sterling and £2,000 Irish that Ms Larkin into another account in June of 1995.
Ms Larkin’s poise and composure were as immaculate as her appearance. In almost five hours of evidence, there was no stumbling, no ‘ums’ and ‘aws’. She was also (refreshingly) familiar. This wasn’t a strategy. Anything lawyerly will always be po-faced but she brought a degree of levity by insisting on addressing her interrogators Henry and Des, as if she were a primary school teacher gently bringing unruly seven-year olds to order.
Sure, she had a few rough passages. Certainly, there were a couple of elongated pauses when she was faced with complex or tricky questions. But as the day wore on, she became more testy, challenging the basis of a line of enquiry, or accusing Mr Murphy of being pedantic. At one stage, when he accused her of conveniently going blank in her recollection, she acidly responded by asking him could he remember what he did last Friday at 9.02?
But her major problem was this. Why all the different and contradictory versions of the events and the transactions?
“It’s a fairly simple matter; there can not be that much of a mystery to it,” said Mr Murphy at one stage in an obvious piece of observation.
Let’s examine one of the lines of inquiry. Ms Larkin’s first account to the Tribunal was in June 2006 when she supplied it with a memo of her recollection. At that time, she said that Michael Wall had deposited the £30,000 sterling that he said he gave to Bertie for the house.
But subsequently she changed that, and introduced a new narrative. The following month, she was interviewed by Tribunal lawyers. At that stage she said it was she who lodged the money in a new account in her name. And she said that the money was handed to her by Michael Wall in the office of the late Gerry Brennan, Mr Ahern’s solicitor who also acted for Mr Wall in relation to dealings over the house.
And then in July this year, just as she was due to give evidence to the Tribunal, it all changed again. Now she was saying the money had not been handed over in Mr Brennan’s office after all but that she had collected it from Mr Ahern’s constituency office, St Luke’s, and lodged it into the bank.
And then yesterday, there was a further ‘clarification’. Now she remembered that she was in St Luke’s on the Saturday and had witnessed Mr Wall putting the cash on the table and Mr Ahern taking the bundles of sterling and going to a back room to put them into the safe. And then the following Monday, she collected a briefcase and lodged it. Up until now, she had made no mention of witnessing the money being handed over in St Luke’s. But these new details came only a day after Michael Wall had said as much to the Tribunal in evidence.
There were similar inconsistencies in relation to the second account she opened on December 5, the one for £50,000. In earlier evidence and communication with the Tribunal she could not recall exactly how the £50,000 came to be withdrawn in January 1995, only a month later. But in her communication with the Tribunal in July of this year, she remembered that she had collected it in a parcel or a bag. And yesterday for the first time, she recalled that it was Bertie Ahern who had given her the lift to the bank that morning and waited outside in the car. Suddenly the sketch writers in the Tribunal had struck gold – Bertie the Getaway Driver was born.
It was deeply unsurprising that the Tribunal lawyers would hone in on the inconsistencies of the accounts, and the apparent credibility gaps. What was surprising was that Ms Larkin considered this to be deeply surprising, as she objected with increasing force to the minutiae and the forensics.
She was not convincing, however, when explaining how her memory and recollection had improved over the past 15 months. Her strategy was two-fold. She insisted that the first interview by lawyers was informal and an information-gathering exercise. She had talked freely and openly, she insisted, but had only given the gist without going into detail. It was only later that she was able to piece together the rest.
And it was when Bertie Ahern told her that all these events took place on the weekend of his annual fund-raising dinner and on the weekend before he might have been Taoiseach (Dick Spring pulled the plug on that the following Monday morning, she reminded everbody twice) that she remembered everything in more detail.
But that alone couldn’t bring back such a flood of recollection, could it? The most interesting exchange was between her and Judge Gerard Keyes who asked her had anyone assisted her in furnishing the Tribunal with the fuller clarifications. Ms Larkin seemed to suggest conversations with Bertie Ahern but when Judge Keyes probed, all he had reminded her of was that the weekend was the fateful weekend before Dick Spring pulled the plug. Less than convincing, given the extent of the new detail she couldn’t recall last year but could suddenly recall with precision in July of this year and yesterday.
But in the end, there were no torpedoes, no scuppering, no big rips in the Anorak. We just saw more of the ongoing smoke and mirrors show that is Bertie Ahern’s personal finances. The inconsistencies remain. And following Celia Larkin’s evidence, there were the same number of loose ends. We’ll probably have more by the time the Taoiseach himself finishes his testimony on Friday.
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
INSIDE POLITICS - BERTIEGATE III
Well if Shrek III, Spiderman III and Pirates of the Caribbean III are in cinemas now, there's no harm in crucifying the long-suffering public with BertieGate III.
Just when you thought it was safe to go back into negotiations for Government, you realise that the danger you thought you had disposed of once and for all is still lurking out there in the deep waters.
Of course, this was foreseen. On the first day proper of the election campaign - amid much FF bleating - the Mahon Tribunal decided to suspend its hearings until May 26.
A common interpretation was this - the problem hadn't gone away; it was lurking in the long grass to pounce at the moment that negotiations for government began.
Early in the campaign, many people thought Fianna Fail would be a good few seats short of its 2002 total and, if it had any chance of government, would need to commence long, difficult, and delicate negotiations. These talks would begin just as the Quarryvale II module opened, containing all those details and questions about his personal finances, the house etc.
So thumping was the FF victory - and so well ventilated was Ahern's political difficulties over his personal finance - that you kind of thought that nothing the Mahon Tribunal could come up with yesterday would add to the picture, or create complications for FF.
But it has. Ahern said that Celia Larkin lodged a sum of £30,000 sterling at an AIB bank on O'Connell Street that day. The Tribunal says that only about £1,900 sterling was bought that day. It has also posited a theory that the amount lodged was the exact equivalent of $45,000 - the chances of that being a coincidence were slim he said. But so far there has been no evidence or documentation produced to show that $45,000 was bought in the bank branch that day. That's why Ahern's lawyer, Conor Maguire argued:
Still. The fact that less than two grand sterling was transacted that day will cause the Taoiseach some problems. But not too many. All of the allegations bar that one have been in circulation already.
But having said that, those who will strike a deal with FF may seek assurances from Ahern in relation to that transaction and also, some guarantee that something else is not coming down the tracks.
Fine Gael's statement last night was a work of mischief. Penned by Fergus O'Dowd, it was designed to throw the cat in among the pigeons, to sow the seeds of doubt, and to put pressure on those who will do a deal. Of course, Fine Gael itself has a huge interest in this, as it itself wants to form a government.
But sadly this morning it failed to live up to the courage of its convictions when it was unable to provide a spokesperson for Morning Ireland. If you are issuing statements headed...
Tribunal Contradiction of Taoiseach’s Statement Raises Serious Issues
... then you must be willing to have the spine to back it up publicly, as it is a very serious allegation.
Will it affect the talks and the formation of government? It's hard to say. You wonder do the PDs have any appetite for it, or will the Greens (if they're asked) consider it a deal-breaker.
Certainly, it will create a small element of doubt. But Ahern has categorically denied he made a dollar transaction. It will be a longish time before the Tribunal hears evidence from him, and even longer before it issues its report. Assurances will be sought, I'm sure. And assurances will be given, I'm also sure.
And I'm certain too that any obstacles will be overcome in the short term. But sometime in the mid-distance, you can sense that the storms are brewing.
Just when you thought it was safe to go back into negotiations for Government, you realise that the danger you thought you had disposed of once and for all is still lurking out there in the deep waters.
Of course, this was foreseen. On the first day proper of the election campaign - amid much FF bleating - the Mahon Tribunal decided to suspend its hearings until May 26.
A common interpretation was this - the problem hadn't gone away; it was lurking in the long grass to pounce at the moment that negotiations for government began.
Early in the campaign, many people thought Fianna Fail would be a good few seats short of its 2002 total and, if it had any chance of government, would need to commence long, difficult, and delicate negotiations. These talks would begin just as the Quarryvale II module opened, containing all those details and questions about his personal finances, the house etc.
So thumping was the FF victory - and so well ventilated was Ahern's political difficulties over his personal finance - that you kind of thought that nothing the Mahon Tribunal could come up with yesterday would add to the picture, or create complications for FF.
But it has. Ahern said that Celia Larkin lodged a sum of £30,000 sterling at an AIB bank on O'Connell Street that day. The Tribunal says that only about £1,900 sterling was bought that day. It has also posited a theory that the amount lodged was the exact equivalent of $45,000 - the chances of that being a coincidence were slim he said. But so far there has been no evidence or documentation produced to show that $45,000 was bought in the bank branch that day. That's why Ahern's lawyer, Conor Maguire argued:
"The was a completely fanciful suggestion made without any supporting evidence and without any allegation to that effect having been made to the tribunal."
Still. The fact that less than two grand sterling was transacted that day will cause the Taoiseach some problems. But not too many. All of the allegations bar that one have been in circulation already.
But having said that, those who will strike a deal with FF may seek assurances from Ahern in relation to that transaction and also, some guarantee that something else is not coming down the tracks.
Fine Gael's statement last night was a work of mischief. Penned by Fergus O'Dowd, it was designed to throw the cat in among the pigeons, to sow the seeds of doubt, and to put pressure on those who will do a deal. Of course, Fine Gael itself has a huge interest in this, as it itself wants to form a government.
But sadly this morning it failed to live up to the courage of its convictions when it was unable to provide a spokesperson for Morning Ireland. If you are issuing statements headed...
Tribunal Contradiction of Taoiseach’s Statement Raises Serious Issues
... then you must be willing to have the spine to back it up publicly, as it is a very serious allegation.
Will it affect the talks and the formation of government? It's hard to say. You wonder do the PDs have any appetite for it, or will the Greens (if they're asked) consider it a deal-breaker.
Certainly, it will create a small element of doubt. But Ahern has categorically denied he made a dollar transaction. It will be a longish time before the Tribunal hears evidence from him, and even longer before it issues its report. Assurances will be sought, I'm sure. And assurances will be given, I'm also sure.
And I'm certain too that any obstacles will be overcome in the short term. But sometime in the mid-distance, you can sense that the storms are brewing.
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