By Paddy Clancy

Former Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Charles Haughey received millions of dollars from businessmen over 17 years in return for favors when he enjoyed a lifestyle “vastly beyond the scale of what he earned as a public representative,” according to the main findings in the 700-page first report of the Moriarty Tribunal set up nine years ago to probe political corruption.

The report, presented to TDs (members of Parliament) on Tuesday, contains a series of damning findings on the finances of the former taoiseach. It found that his cash-for-favors schemes “devalued the quality of the state's democracy.”

Key findings established that Haughey:

*“Misappropriated for his personal use” much of the $415,000 raised for a liver transplant for former cabinet colleague Brian Lenihan;

*Accepted $83,000 to support Irish passport applications by wealthy Saudi sheikh Mahmoud Fustok;

*Received payments of more than $14.5 million between 1979 and 1996 -- excluding income or pensions -- that were secretive, opaque, and frequently involved off-shore tax-avoidance vehicles; and;

*Accepted five further payments from millionaire businessman Ben Dunne over and above the payments identified by the earlier McCracken Tribunal.

The inquiry headed by Justice Michael Moriarty was established following the report of the McCracken Tribunal which revealed Haughey had received huge payments from Ben Dunne.

On the Lenihan money, Moriarty said that "Mr. Haughey alone knew what was collected for the benefit of Mr. Lenihan, and by whom it was contributed.”

Of the $415,000 that may have been collected, no more than $112,000 was applied in meeting the costs and expenses attendant on Lenihan's medical treatment in the U.S.

The report added, "The tribunal is satisfied that a sizeable proportion of the excess funds collected was misappropriated by Mr. Haughey for his personal use.”

On the money received from Sheikh Fustok, the inquiry found it was made in a “secretive and clandestine manner” and was connected to the naturalization of a number of Fustok's relatives and was not, as Haughey claimed, payment for a horse.

Moriarty said he was satisfied that, while Fustok may well have purchased a horse from Haughey’s Abbeville Stud, the payment of $83,000 in February, 1985, and secretly channeled through former government minister Dr. John O'Connell's bank account, did not relate to that or to any other commercial transaction. It was specifically connected with the naturalization of certain of the sheikh's relatives.

On the $14.5 payments over 17 years, the report said they funded Haughey's conspicuously lavish lifestyle beyond what his relatively modest salary should have afforded him.

Moriarty added, "Apart from the almost invariably secretive nature of payments from senior members of the business community, their very incidence and scale, particularly during difficult economic times nationally, and when governments led by Mr. Haughey were championing austerity, can only be said to have devalued the quality of a modern democracy."

The report was critical of Allied Irish Bank, where Haughey held an account throughout the 1970s. When Haughey was elected taoiseach in 1979 he owed the bank $1.55 million, a debt that related solely to his own personal and household expenditures.

AIB "took no action whatsoever to curb Mr. Haughey's mounting indebtedness, or to recover the debt which he owed. On the contrary, the bank exhibited a marked deference in its attitude to Mr. Haughey, and a disinclination to address or control his excesses as a banking customer which had accumulated over several years, and which became increasingly pronounced when he was appointed a government minister in 1977.

"The tribunal is of the opinion that the degree of forbearance shown by Allied Irish Banks in the settlement concluded with Mr. Haughey in January, 1980, constituted an indirect payment, or benefit equivalent to a payment."

The tribunal also found that a “Leader's Allowance Account,” set up to receive the party leader's allowance from the Exchequer was used by Haughey for personal benefit.

Present Taoiseach Bertie Ahern co-signed the checks drawn on the account at the time, thus facilitating the misuse of the account. But he had, Moriarty found, no reason to believe that the account was operated other than for a proper purpose.

Among the first to react to the report was Ben Dunne. In an angry outburst during an RTE radio interview he said Moriarty had effectively called him a liar –- the first time in his life he had ever been so accused.

Moriarty said that, apart from a final payment of $32,000 which was lodged directly to an account in Haughey's name, all of Dunne’s payments were routed in the most elaborate and complex manner.

Dunne was a courteous witness, the tribunal said, but it could not accept submissions and medical reports furnished on his behalf.

Dunne said, “The chairman(of the tribunal) is actually calling me a liar. I’m not a liar. I did not tell lies. The tribunal has called me a liar and I refuse to accept that. I told all I knew.”

When reminded he could seek a judicial inquiry into the findings in relation to his evidence, Dunne said, “I wouldn’t bother my barney with a judicial inquiry. I may have to live with being called a liar.”

The tribunal expects to issue a report on payments to independent TD and former Fine Gael government minister Michael Lowry early next year.