Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

I would like to answer the Deputy's question. I have tried through several phone calls — not a few phone calls — to people I know in Manchester over the past week to ask whether they were definitely at the function. People told me they were at this function, that function and the other function. People told me: "I remember a function where we raised a lot of money." I asked what function that was and was told it was a charity function. People just cannot pin themselves down as to whether they were there that night. I would have met that group of people, probably, on 15 or 20 occasions that I can recall so I just cannot pin down exactly who was there. When John Kennedy came forward last week, I did not remember that John Kennedy was at that function a long time back. At one stage when I looked for names for the tribunal, John Kennedy came forward and gave a letter to the tribunal. I would not have been able to pin down those names. I think I have a good idea of another seven or eight, but I would need to try to find them individually.

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