Questions for Bertie
Village outlines a list of questions that Bertie has yet to answer.
Watch the vigourous exchange between Vincent Browne and Bertie Ahern at the Fianna Fail press conference this morning
[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6tQN6H_tVY]
Listen to the exchange here:
http://dynamic.rte.ie/av/news1pm/2244681.smil
Why did he not purchase his own house at the time, given that he, clearly, had the resources to do so, given that he had £50,000 available for the refurbishment of this house which at the time must have been worth no more than £150,000 (Bertie Ahern bought the house three years later for £180,000)?
Why would Bertie Ahern agree to spend £50,000 on the refurbishment of a house that he did not own?
How could the refurbishments of a four-year-old house worth about £150,000 in 1994 cost £80,000?
Why would the owner of the house, Micheál Wall, agree to spend stg£30,000 on the refurbishment of what was almost a new house, just as he was about to rent it for £450 per month? Why would Micheál Wall have brought stg£30,000 in cash a briefcase to Dublin in early December 1994? Why would he not have done his transactions by cheque?
Did Bertie Ahern think there was anything odd about being given stg£30,000 in cash by Micháel Wall that Saturday morning, 3 December 1994, in St Luke's, Drumcondra?
How could the stg£30,000 be for stamp duty, as Bertie Ahern claimed on 30 April 2007? (The purchase of the house wasn't completed until months later and anyway, the stamp duty would have been much less.)
Why would Micheál Wall have made a will leaving the house to Bertie Ahern, if it was not the case that the real owner all along was Bertie Ahern, not Micheál Wall, even though the latter's name was on the deeds from 1994 to 1997?
How could Bertie Ahern have saved £28,000 by 3 December 1994, given that, according to himself, in early-1994 all his savings were gone in payment for the education trust for his children and the payment of other bills? (The monies raised for him at Christmas 1993 went on paying off the bank loan for his legal bills, and the monies raised for him by friends in October 1994 and in Manchester also in October 1994 comprised £22,000, which went towards the £50,000 he was offering for the refurbishment of the house he did not own.)
How come his partner at the time, Celia Larkin, accompanied Micheál Wall when he first saw the property in Beresford, Drumcondra?
What lodgements did he and Celia Larkin make to various bank accounts in 1994 and 1995, sums that matched round-figure sterling amounts; and why did they have “various” bank accounts?
Why did he need to buy large amounts of sterling in those years, to “repay” Micheál Wall? For what was he “repaying” Micheál Wall, and why would he do it by withdrawing cash, rather than simply transferring the cash from one bank account to another or by cheque?
Why did Celia Larkin open two accounts in her own name in December 1994 into which she lodged Micheál Wall's stg£30,000 in one and Bertie Ahern's £50,000 in the other? Why was this necessary?