It has been revealed at the Moriarty Tribunal that Padraig Collery made over £400,000 sterling in ten years for running the Ansbacher bank accounts scheme. Mr Collery, who ran the Ansbacher accounts scheme after Des Traynor, has been appearing before the Moriarty Tribunal. Mr Collery was also paid an additional £1,000 a month for dealing with one client in Ireland. The identity of that person has not been made public, but he has been described as "a significant client". Those monthly payments stopped in March 1997 when the McCracken Tribunal began.
Today is Mr Collery's fourth day giving evidence to the tribunal. He is being questioned as to the extent of his involvement in running the Ansbacher system. The tribunal heard that Mr Collery had specific responsibility for one client in Ireland, for which he was paid £1000 a month. Mr Collery has maintained that he was never wholly responsible for the accounts, but the Tribunal has been shown how his payments went up dramatically after Des Traynor, who had been running the accounts, died in 1994.
By the time the McCracken Tribunal was up and running, the last of the Ansbacher funds had been shifted out of Dublin to the Cayman Islands. Mr Collery said that, by that time, he wanted out. He said, "I wanted to close this book in my life ... I wanted nothing more to do with it." Later he added that, unfortunately, it is going on and on. He told the tribunal how he set about making a clean breast of the matter to the Revenue Commissioners. He was asked again why he had not made a clean breast of it to the tribunal.
The Moriarty Tribunal has also been hearing how a loan to a company called Central Tourist Holdings was repaid with funds from the Cayman Islands. The TD Denis Foley was one of four directors of Central Tourist holdings. In 1972 Central Tourist Holdings took out a loan of £70,000 with Guinness and Mahon bank. That loan was marked as "suitably secured" - a shorthand for indicating that the funds were guaranteed by Ansbacher.
The loan was not paid off until September of 1985. By that stage, with interest, the loan stood at £135,000. The Tribunal heard how a fictional loan account was created just over a month later to give the impression that that loan was still outstanding. An audit certificate was issued at this time showing a debt of £135,000.
