KEY QUOTES

Bertie Ahern: I had saved it [his cash savings] since 1987, through the whole period of my separation, which I don't think is any of your damn business.

Des O'Neill: You do not have that money on the 14th but you set about acquiring that money between the 14th and the 23rd. On the 23rd you return with the money, £15,000 in cash, a draft dated December 22nd . . . and a cheque dated December 22nd, so that you now have £15,000 in cash and £22,500 in total.

Bertie Ahern: It is unbelievable Mr O'Neill. It is unbelievable and I really, really don't believe . . . that you or anybody else would put that together, other than trying to set me up and stitch me up. That is just unbelievable. Unbelievably!

Bertie Ahern: "When you work your butt off and at the end of seven or eight years you end up with £30,000 . . . Money's not important to me . . . It's very little."

Bertie Ahern : "I hardly know what my own salary is."

- in response to being asked how much a minister for finance earns nowadays.

Des O'Neill: "By any measure you were a very successful man at that time."

- referring to 1986, when Mr Ahern, then aged 35, was opposition spokesman for labour and lord mayor of Dublin.

Bertie Ahern: "Others can decide that."

© 2007 The Irish Times

This article appears in the print edition of the Irish Times