A payment of more than £250,000 lodged in the Ansbacher deposits for the benefit of the former Taoiseach, Mr Haughey, in May 1987 is understood to have moved via a British company linked to the late Cayman Islands banker, Mr John Furze.

The Moriarty tribunal and the authorised officer inquiring into the Ansbacher deposits, Mr Gerard Ryan, are inquiring into the payment which they are understood to believe came originally from Mr Ben Dunne.

The payment is understood to have been received by Mr Haughey via a company called Tripleplan and possibly other third parties. Mr Dunne may not have been aware of its final destination. He was not available for comment last night.

At the time, May 1987, an overdraft of £261,000 which Mr Haughey had with Guinness & Mahon bank, was cleared. The clearing of the overdraft was mentioned during the opening day of the hearing of evidence by the McCracken tribunal, in April 1997, but was not widely reported at the time. The amount is extra to the £1.3 million dealt with by the tribunal.

As the tribunal had no reason to believe the money to clear off the overdraft came from Mr Dunne, the matter was not dealt with in public in any detail.

Mr Furze and another Cayman banker, Mr John Collins, both of whom were involved in the establishment of the Guinness & Mahon bank in the Cayman Islands in the 1970s, were directors of Tripleplan. They were appointed directors in June 1985. Secretarial services for the company were provided by Management and Investment Services Ltd, a Dublin company formations and secretarial services operation run by Mr Sam Field-Corbett.

Shares in Tripleplan were held by College Trustees Ltd, with an address in Guernsey in the Channel Islands. The company was dissolved in 1988.

According to documents filed with the British Companies Office, Mr Furze and Mr Collins were also directors of a company called Nordstate. They were appointed to the company on the same day as they were appointed to Tripleplan. On the same date, June 4th, 1985, Management and Investment Services was appointed as secretary to Nordstate. The shareholding was held by College Trustees Ltd, of Guernsey. Nordstate was also dissolved in 1988.

Mr Field-Corbett established Management and Investment Services Ltd in the early 1970s at the suggestion of the late Mr Des Traynor. Both Mr Traynor and Mr Field-Corbett had worked with the accountancy firm Haughey Boland.

In 1970, Mr Traynor moved to Guinness & Mahon bank and suggested to Mr Field-Corbett that he set up his company. A large number of Guinness & Mahon clients were directed towards Mr Field-Corbett's company by Mr Traynor, according to sources. Mr Traynor handled the personal finances of Mr Haughey.