Committee Reports > List of Committees > Dáil > 1972 > Committee of Public Accounts > Final Report - Northern Ireland Relief Expenditure

APPENDIX 7.

Report of visit to Belfast by Secretary, Department of Finance.

Report of Visit to Belfast, January 1971, by Mr C H Murray, Secretary, Department of Finance

Notes:

Paragraph 57 of Final Report.

(1) The information contained in this Report was conveyed orally to the Committee in January 1971.

Proceedings 13/7/72.

(2) In this Report, persons living outside the State are not referred to by name and the specific areas in Belfast involved in the inquiries are also not disclosed.

Appendix 10, pages 358 (43), and 364 (5).

1. The visit was made following discussions which I had in Dublin with the three individuals in whose names the Clones account was held (see paragraph 43 of Department of Finance submission of 9th December 1970 to the Committee of Public Accounts and paragraph 5 of further submission of 23rd December 1970.) The individuals concerned said they were willing to facilitate a visit to Belfast by one individual from Dublin. Accordingly I visited Belfast and met members of the Belfast Committee for the Relief of Distress and a number of the distributors of the relief.

2. The Belfast Committee for the Relief of Distress had nine members in all. I met three members—a businessman and two professional people—of the Committee in Belfast apart from the three with whom discussions had already taken place in Dublin. Two other members whom I had not met did not attend—a professional man and a businessman. One (Mr. G) of the three men whom I met in Dublin did not attend the discussion in Belfast nor did Mr. J. In summary, therefore, I met in Belfast five members of the Committee, of whom two were Clones account-holders.

3. The information obtained from the meeting with the Committee members met in Belfast can be summarised as follows—

(1) The Committee during the critical period operated in an informal way.

(2) The members could not throw any light on the origin of the Irish Red Cross arrangement except to refer to the difficulties which lay in the way of operations by the Irish Red Cross in Northern Ireland.

(3) They could not say precisely who opened the Clones account but were aware that it was opened after a meeting between Messrs. F, G and H with the then Minister for Finance, Mr. C. J. Haughey, T.D.

(4) They stated that the initiative to open the Baggot Street account had come from the North as had also the initiative to use fictitious names. The opening of this account was arranged through Captain James Kelly who was their link-man in Dublin. The actual mechanics involved were not known to these particular members of the Committee.

The Committee members were unable to state who had conveyed the fictitious names to the bank. They confirmed that the proposal regarding the use of fictitious names had not come from any particular group in the Committee. They stated that it had been the general feeling in the Committee that the account should not have been in Clones and should have been in fictitious names previously to safeguard their security.

(5) The Committee members also confirmed that, as a group, they had never seen anything in writing in regard to the bank account in either Clones or Baggot Street. At no time had they any indication of what was lodged to either account. The practice was for a courier to arrive in Dublin with an open cheque and his first task would be to ascertain the amount in the bank account and, if there were no funds, contact would be made with Captain Kelly whose function it would be to obtain more funds. They never received a bank statement or lodgment dockets and never knew the state of the account at any time.

(6) The Committee were adamant that they had no knowledge of the subsidiary accounts in the Baggot Street bank. Mr. F recalled bringing the Warrant to the Baggot Street bank. He was not clear as to who had notified the bank of the names. Mr. F admitted that he had been a courier between Belfast and Dublin but he had not been involved in the operation of the subsidiary accounts.

4. Mr. F put me in touch with four persons who had acted as distributors of relief in the various areas; he was present at my meetings with them. Arrangements had been made to see a fifth person, but he was out at work when we called at his house.

District No. 1. The distributor for this area stated that the main item which he had handled was payments to wage-earners for loss of wages. These were persons who because of the disturbances were unable to report to their normal place of work or who, for security reasons, could not even leave their own areas. A maximum of 40 cases had been dealt with per week. This figure fluctuated from time to time. In the first week of the operation a total of £700 had been paid out. The average afterwards was about £250 a week. The distributor said he estimated that the total amount paid out by him during the period was about £6,000. He also acted as courier for the conveyance of funds to other areas in place of Mr. F. This had happened on about 10 or 11 occasions. The average amount carried each time was about £2,000—apart from his own requirements.

District No. 2. The distributor for this area stated that he had dealt with 20 to 30 families per week. His weekly outlay had varied from £150/£160 to £260/£280. His distribution work had started approximately a month after the original disturbances in August 1969. He was unable to quote an estimate for the total amount which he had distributed.

District No. 3. The distributor in this area had dealt with 10 to 15 families per week. His average outlay was about £150 per week. This activity had lasted for about 6 months. He was unwilling to hazard an estimate of the total amount which had passed through his hands as he considered it would not be reliable enough.

District No. 4. The distributor for this area had dealt with about 40 families at the maximum. His weekly outlay had varied from £230 to £300. He estimated the total amount which he had deal with as between £3,000 and £4,000.

None of the four distributors had, apparently, retained any documentation in connexion with these payments, and it was clear that they had not a precise recollection of the amounts of money they handled or of the number of families assisted.

5. I was told that there were 16 distributors in all. I formed the impression that it was unlikely that any more reliable information would be obtained from meeting all the distributors.

Appendix 10, page 358 (43).

6. I met the four distributors before my meeting with members of the Belfast Committee. I told these members that they had the onus of clarifying the discrepancy referred to in paragraph 43 of this Department’s submission of 9 December 1970 to the Committee of Public Accounts. They accepted this.

C. H. MURRAY.

11 July 1972.