Bertie Ahern was under pressure last night after angrily denying that he had tried to hide cash gifts and loans from wealthy friends by placing them in his girlfriend’s bank accounts.

For the third day, the Irish Prime Minister sparred with lawyers at a tribunal investigating corruption in high places.

After a decade in power and a convincing electoral victory in May, Mr Ahern is facing a serious challenge to his credibility, with questions being asked about secret cash payments he received in the early 1990s while serving as Finance Minister.

The Mahon Tribunal, which has spent the past ten years investigating allegations of bribery in property deals, has discovered four secret cash deposits paid in 1994 and 1995 into bank accounts administered by Mr Ahern’s then girlfriend, Celia Larkin.

Mr Ahern denied hiding the money, although he was forced to concede that he had not informed the tribunal’s lawyers of a £50,000 deposit.

The tribunal was told that the £50,000 had been lodged in an account in the name of Ms Larkin and withdrawn and given to Mr Ahern in cash the following month.

Mr Ahern told the tribunal he kept the cash in a safe at his constituency office. “That’s what I did. You have a problem with that?” the Taoiseach said during one particularly testy exchange with a senior tribunal lawyer, Des O’Neill, whom Ahern mockingly referred to as “the Wizard”.

Mr O’Neill accused the Prime Minister of seeking to hide the fact that much of the undocumented money deposited into his accounts had been converted from foreign currency. He said that it had taken two and a half years of correspondence with Mr Ahern’s lawyers for this to be admitted.

“I wasn’t hiding anything. Any questions that ever came up, I answered them,” Mr Ahern replied.

At one point, Mr Ahern was applauded by the public gallery when he said that he hoped that his chief accuser would face similar treatment. “I hope Mr Gilmartin gets the same grilling as me,” he said, referring to Tom Gilmartin, a UK-based Irish property developer who has accused Mr Ahern of taking bribes from a rival property developer in the early 1990s. Mr Ahern has denied the accusations.

Investigators have found it difficult to substantiate or refute Mr Gilmartin’s claim because Mr Ahern held no bank accounts between 1987 and 1994. He cashed his monthly government salary in his local pub.

Mr Ahern admits that he received money from 39 business friends, but denies granting them political favours in return. He has declined to identify most of the donors, claiming that he cannot remember their names.

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