Inquiry told 'D/T obviously means Des Richardson and Tim Collins'

D/T ACCOUNT: AN ACCOUNT opened by St Luke's trustee Tim Collins with former Fianna Fail fundraiser Des Richardson was referred to as D/T, the tribunal was told yesterday.

Counsel for the tribunal Des O'Neill SC questioned Mr Collins about an account he opened in the Irish Permanent Building Society in July 1991. Mr O'Neill said the account had not been disclosed to the tribunal.

"I had forgotten completely about that facility," Mr Collins said.

He said he opened the account when his architectural business, Pilgrim Associates Ltd, ran into cash flow problems.

Mr O'Neill said the first transaction on the account was for a withdrawal of over £400 and the document called the account D/T.

"D/T obviously means Des Richardson and Tim Collins," Mr Collins said.

"So you take the first letter of the Christian name of each of the beneficial owners of the account and you apply that with the hyphen between the two," Mr O'Neill said. "I have to ask you, Mr Collins, whether or not the B/T account is in fact the first name of the two account holders, Bertie Ahern and Tim Collins?"

"The B/T account, as I stated earlier on many hours ago here, is the building trust account," Mr Collins responded.

© 2008 The Irish Times

This article appears in the print edition of the Irish Times