Fianna Fail did not inform the Flood Tribunal that Mr Ray Burke received £30,000 from the Rennicks subsidiary of Fitzwilton in the sworn affidavit it furnished to the tribunal on April 1st.
Fianna Fail only told the tribunal that the party had received £10,000, passed to it by Mr Burke during the 1989 general election.
The Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, told the Dail last week that he became aware of the £30,000 contribution from Rennicks to Mr Burke, a cheque made payable to cash, in the course of the preparation of the affidavit for the planning tribunal. "I was more than surprised when we discovered in March that another contribution of £30,000 had been made", Mr Ahern stated last Thursday.
Government sources were adamant late last night that the "full details" which the tribunal had sought were handed over by Fianna Fail. They said that legal sources would confirm that, when a sworn affidavit was asked for, the party had to be able to testify with documentary proof. How could Fianna Fail prove, the sources asked, that Mr Burke had received £30,000 from the Fitzwilton subsidiary?
Responding to an Irish Times inquiry as to why Fianna Fail did not disclose the £30,000 to the tribunal, a party spokesman said that Fianna Fail had been issued with an order for discovery and production of documentation by the Flood Tribunal in relation to payments made to the party by Mr James Gogarty, Mr Michael Bailey and Mr Ray Burke.
"In accordance with legal advice, Fianna Fail furnished to the tribunal all the information and documentary evidence it had on such payments. We have co-operated fully with the Flood Tribunal and will continue to offer the tribunal our fullest co-operation", the spokesman added.
He concluded: "We are not at liberty to discuss the contents of the affidavit we furnished."
Opposition leaders are expected to pursue the latest twist in the Burke controversy when the Dail debates Mr Ahern's handling of the affair tonight.
Mr Ahern told the Dail last week that it was the Fianna Fail party which had disclosed to the tribunal the documentation in relation to Rennicks. The tribunal had been told that the party had only received one £10,000 contribution, by way of bank draft, from Mr Burke in 1989. "At no stage prior to the delivery of the affidavit of discovery had the tribunal ever asked questions of Fianna Fail in relation to Rennicks. We were the ones who told it about Rennicks", the Taoiseach said.
He continued: "Some have suggested that I should have come to the House when these matters were discovered. There is surely no straighter, more direct or appropriate way to declare something than to swear it in an affidavit and to send the documents we had on this to the tribunal established by the Dail and delegated to investigate the matters."
Mr Ahern then stated: "We deemed that the appropriate and most correct way to deal with this was to give what we had discovered to the tribunal and let it investigate it further and come to conclusions."
At another point in last Thursday's debate the Taoiseach outlined the background to the discovery that the £10,000 received by Fianna Fail from Mr Burke was not from Joseph Murphy Structural Engineering, but from Rennicks. "I asked the officials to check this out and said we would have to report it to the tribunal immediately. I thought that was the proper . . . procedure - to give it to the tribunal - because the Dail had given the tribunal powers to follow this up. I thought I should disclose it."
Mr Ahern said he also asked his officials to inform the Rennicks company that Fianna Fail was disclosing this. He told the Dail: "A Mr David Byrne, on behalf of the company, made contact to say that they had given no money at all, under any circumstances, and that this was not correct. Some time later, Mr [Robin] Rennicks confirmed that it was the case. We went ahead and gave the data to the tribunal." ail party on February 20th last. The order for discovery from the tribunal to Fianna Fail specified documents relating to the payment "of any sums of money by Ray Burke to the Fianna Fail national organisation since January 1st, 1989."
