As more details of his friend Des Richardson's finances come tumbling out, loyalty looks to have a high price for Bertie Ahern. Ted Harding and Barry O'Kelly report

Bertie Ahern's constituency office in Drumcondra was even more a hive of activity than usual around 9pm last Saturday. It looked like the Taoiseach's praetorian guard was in emergency session. For weeks, the financial affairs of Des Richardson, Ahern's key fundraiser, had been under intense scrutiny. The Sunday papers brought more awkward revelations.

Based on the cars parked outside St Lukes, the Taoiseach was consulting with close friends Dublin Port Company chairman Joe Burke, Chris Wall, CIE director Paul Kiely and others. Among the upmarket motors outside was a Jaguar, prompting speculation that Richardson himself might even be in the vicinity.

In preceding days, senior figures in Fianna Fáil were known to be extremely concerned about ongoing media probes into Richardson's dealing. "It's all getting very close to home," an apprehensive associate of Ahern said to one source. Those hoping that investigations would produce no new embarrassing details were to be disappointed.

Disclosures in this newspaper indicated that the relationship between a firm controlled by Richardson and Rohan Holdings, the property firm of multi-millionaire developer Ken Rohan, was much more lucrative than had been thought previously. An invoice from Richardson's firm, Berraway Limited, sought payment of £10,000 (€12,700) plus £2,100 in VAT from Rohan Holdings in February 1997. But this only represented the "Final payment due under a previously agreed strategic consultancy advice" arrangement.

The number of payments sought from Rohan's firm remains a mystery. The total amount due under the "strategic consultancy" is not known, nor is the nature of the work done. However, it is known that from August 1996 until early 2000, over £850,000 (€1.08 million) passed through an account held by Berraway.

Richardson is one of the Taoiseach's closest associates and is the man who spearheaded the fundraising drive which produced an estimated £2.5 million for Fianna Fáil in the 1990s. He also remains an important figure in party fundraising. Indeed, at a Fianna Fáil function at the Galway races last August, Ahern publicly thanked his friend for the sterling work done in selling tickets for the party's marquee at the event to an assortment of wealthy and high rolling supporters.

Revelations about Rohan make particularly grim reading for the Taoiseach. Rohan is reckoned to have been the sole beneficiary in 1994 when a tax break was introduced by Ahern when he was minister for finance. The developer is believed to have saved £1.5 million in tax at the time and a further £150,000-£180,000 per annum thereafter.

But that was not the end of the disturbing news for the Taoiseach's inner circle. The Revenue Commissioners have begun an investigation into Willdover Limited, another of Richardson's companies. This development has wide ramifications as Richardson is understood to have used Willdover while working as Fianna Fáil's chief fundraiser, a post he held from spring 1993 until over three years ago.

Speculation about the operations of this firm has intensified as, similarly to the case of Berraway, Richardson's involvement with Willdover was never recorded in official Companies Registration Office documents relating to the firm.

The firm, whose articles of association indicate that it engaged in "financial intermediation", never filed annual returns and was dissolved in April 1999.

If Richardson was running a private consultancy business in parallel with his fundraising work for Fianna Fáil, what was he selling? What about the potential for conflicts of interest? In the absence of public answers from Richardson to questions from this newspaper and other media outlets, small wonder senior Fianna Fáilers are anxious.

In 1999, Richardson had three jobs, three offices and three salaries -- the most lucrative of which was also the most low key.

That year he was head of fundraising in Fianna Fáil, with a room in the Berkeley Court Hotel in Dublin 4. For this, he was paid £70,000. He was also executive director in Marlborough Recruitment, with a plush office on Grafton Street. And, most interesting of all, he was running a consultancy service through the mysterious Berraway, with registered offices in Upper Mount Street. Remarkably, it was Berraway that pulled in the most cash for him.

An investigation by The Sunday Business Post has established that Richardson was paid more than €100,000 for work linked to Berraway in 1999.

These consultancy services were provided to businesses as diverse as a specialist security firm, a property developer and an advertising agency. Not bad for a man whose original chosen field of business was the recruitment trade.

In the same year, this newspaper can reveal that over £220,000 (over €280,000) passed through a bank account held by Berraway.

By 2000, Richardson appeared to have amassed a considerable personal property portfolio. In the summer of that year he was claiming that his home at 8 The Birches on Torquay Road in Foxrock, Co Dublin, was worth £1.5 million. A £150,000 mortgage was outstanding on the property.

Aside from the residence in one of Dublin's most sought-after areas, he also claimed ownership of two apartments on Holles Street, Dublin. These were said to have a combined value of £400,000, but there were borrowings of £50,000 on them.

Added to this, the businessman said he owned another apartment in Temple Bar, Dublin, valued at £185,000, on which there were borrowings of £60,000. Richardson also claimed interests in a number of commercial property ventures. These included a stake in a scheme at Kennedy Road in Navan, Co Meath, worth £950,000. There appeared to be liabilities of £650,000 relating to the scheme.

He also had a £300,000 interest in a second Navan scheme, built by a group called the Trimgate partnership. The financial liabilities on this project amounted to £170,000. When private investments worth £250,000 are added and all of the liabilities stripped out, Richardson claimed a net worth of £2.5 million.

Richardson had been involved in a number of business ventures since the late 1980s. He was a principal in a company called Workforce, which provided staff for companies on a contract basis. The business was later sold, yielding a substantial return to its owners.

Meanwhile, Richardson established links with businessman Tim Collins, another member of the Taoiseach's social circle, around the same time. Both were directors of the Pilgrim Group, which provided various services to property firms and developers.

Collins made over €500,000 two years ago from the state's purchase of the Oldbridge estate outside Drogheda. The Flood Tribunal is understood to be examining the deal. It has emerged that the land was bought by the Office of Public Works for €13 million, three years after it had changed hands for only €4.6 million.

Separately, Collins is believed to have worked for a company connected with the controversial Quarryvale retail project in west Co Dublin. This major project is expected to be the focus of the Flood Tribunal's next module.

Luton-based property developer Tom Gilmartin has said Collins was involved in the early 1990s with a company called Barkhill. This was in connection with work carried out for Cork property developer Owen O'Callaghan and his architect Ambrose Kelly.

The Flood Tribunal is taking a keen interest in Berraway. As revealed in The Sunday Business Post on September 8 last, the tribunal is examining links between Richardson and disgraced former lobbyist Frank Dunlop and Berraway. Dunlop's business suffered a calamitous exodus of clients after he admitted at the Flood Tribunal two years ago that he made payments to members of Dublin County Council in relation to vital planning decisions affecting the Quarryvale site.

Dunlop became a shareholder in Berraway in 1992 and remained a shareholder until the company was dissolved in 1999. Richardson was never listed as a shareholder or a director.

However, this newspaper has established that Berraway provided him with his biggest income in 1999 (before it dissolved).

It's believed that he was also earning a further €70,000 per year at Marlborough and €90,000 per year as Fianna Fáil's top money raiser the same year. Richardson's formal fundraising role with Fianna Fáil ended during 1999.

Richardson was not shy about using his networking skills for his various enterprises.

Dave McKenna, founder of Marlborough, was a regular visitor to Fianna Fáil fundraisers in Kilmainham where he brought along a party of ten people associated with the company, according to sources. The annual end of year event, organised by the rather incongruously named O'Donovan Rossa Social Club, has long been the major fundraising function for Ahern's constituency organisation.

McKenna also brought Marlborough employees to the Fianna Fáil tent at the Galway Races where he again paid for a table, the sources said.

His links with Richardson also brought McKenna into direct personal contact with the Taoiseach. Bertie Ahern was among groups that travelled to Manchester United games at Old Trafford. McKenna was also among those rubbing shoulders and downing pints with the Taoiseach in Fagan's of Drumcondra.

Richardson was viewed by staff at Marlborough as one of McKenna's inner circle. Sources said he had the second biggest office in the company (after McKenna).

The office included pictures of various Fianna Fáil political figures, including a large portrait of Charlie Haughey.

The Fianna Fáil link with Berraway was self evident. Frank Dunlop, former FF government press secretary and a man close to many party donors in the past, was a founding shareholder.

Dunlop's public relations firm was also billed for €31,750 by Berraway from July 1997, to June 1998.

Berraway's trading address at 25 Upper Mount Street, was also the same address from which Dunlop's firm, Frank Dunlop & Associates, operated.

Richardson provided a consultancy service to Arks Advertising, security firm RMI, which specialises in kidnapping protection. It also appears to have had links to property developer Rohan Holdings.

Arks worked on election campaigns for Fianna Fáil in 1997 and this year. Chief executive Gerry Nagle told this newspaper recently that "Des was a consultant for us for a couple of months. He was advising on restructuring".

Asked exactly when this was, he replied that he could not remember exactly. "It was years ago," he said.

By 1997, Richardson had turned Fianna Fáil's finances around to the extent that it was able to spend more than £1 million in the election that year. After such a performance, loyalty is the least that Richardson should expect from his friend the Taoiseach. But as more and more revelations about his financial affairs come tumbling out, what price friendship for Ahern?