The 69-year-old County Meath farmer who is being sued for libel by Beverly Cooper Flynn, has told the High Court that a meeting he claims he had with her in 1993 was for the purpose of investing his hot money. James Howard, who is a co-defendant in the action with RTÉ claims that when he raised the issue of the 1993 tax amnesty, she told him that there was no need to give the Government 15 %.
James Howard was hiding hot money from the Revenue that he made partly through farming and from cattle dealing. He says that he first met Beverly Cooper-Flynn, or Beverly Flynn as he called her, in 1990, but despite a meeting they did not do business. They met again in 1993 when his bank manager told him that he would get him the best financial advisor in the country - a daughter of Pádraig Flynn's. Mr Howard said that their meeting at the NIB in Balbriggan was brief.
Ms Cooper-Flynn supposedly said, “We have to make this snappy,” adding that she was going up the country and already late. The meeting was to invest his hot money. However, he felt that what he had done was wrong and when the tax amnesty was introduced some weeks later he thought that he could get his money back from the CMI scheme and avail of it. When he told Ms Cooper-Flynn of his plan, she said, "there's no need to give the Government 15%", adding that she was minding the money and the bank did not do that and left down the phone.
In her her evidence Beverly Cooper-Flynn said that it was her belief that these meetings never happened. Mr Howard will continue his evidence tomorrow.
