Former taoiseach Mr John Bruton said he believed the Independent group of newspapers had threatened the Rainbow Coalition with negative coverage if it did not respond to certain commercial demands.
Responding to Mr Rossa Fanning, for the former minister for transport, energy and communications, Mr Michael Lowry, Mr Bruton said he believed his senior adviser, Mr Seán Donlon, conveyed to him in September 1996 the tenor of a meeting Mr Donlon held that month with executives from Independent Newspapers group (INP).
Mr Donlon, in a statement of intended evidence to the tribunal, has said he was left in no doubt "about Independent Newspapers' hostility to the government parties if outstanding issues were not resolved to their satisfaction".
Mr Bruton said INP executives who met with Mr Donlon may not have used words such as "these are our demands and you will lose the Independent group unless you accede to them".
He said he thought that would be "a very unsubtle threat. I would have thought the view would have been conveyed in a slightly more subtle way, but with no less meaning."
Mr Fanning said that a statement of intended evidence from Sir Anthony indicated that at the meeting in September 1996, Mr Donlon was told that the government could "lose INP as friends".
He agreed with Mr Fanning that the words, if used, could be characterised as a threat.
Mr Fanning said Sir Anthony, in his statement of intended evidence, sought to characterise it as a threat to take legal action against the State. Mr Bruton said the words could also bear the construction that the "threat could implicate media coverage on the part of the Independent as well".
Mr Fanning asked: "And if Mr Donlon did brief you as a result of the meeting, do you think you would have taken the view at the time that this was a threat of adverse media coverage?"
Mr Bruton replied: "I think so, if that was the briefing that he gave me, yes, and I'm certainly not suggesting that he didn't give me such a briefing. As I explained earlier, I don't have an active memory of the matter."
He said he would not be surprised if something conveying that meaning had been said.
He said the newspaper group later "did take a negative view, both towards the government and towards me personally".
Mr Bruton said he had been anxious to meet with Sir Anthony in 1996.
"I would have been concerned that he might have had some difficulties in his perception of the way he was being treated by the government, which might be influencing the way in which his influence in his media outlet might have been exercised."
Mr Fanning said Sir Anthony used the meeting to "convey to you a type of wish list of gripes and complaints that he had about government policy in various areas that intersected with his business interests".
Mr Bruton agreed.
The tribunal heard a letter was sent by Sir Anthony to Mr Bruton after the meeting. It read: "My dear John, Thank you for dropping in on Sunday morning for the proverbial cup of tea. I hope that our conversation served to convince you or at least explain to you how disappointed I am in the course of action taken by the present government in regard to 'private business', as it is quaintly described.
"I and my colleagues are alarmed at the inattention of certain ministers, and equally alarmed that we have become something of a political football in other areas of our business."
He then listed a number of business ventures in which he was involved.