More than 600 days after a tribunal was set up to investigate the allegations circulating about him, the former minister for foreign affairs, Mr Raphael Burke, is due to enter the witness-box before Mr Justice Flood today.
Mr Burke, who has not been seen in political circles since he resigned from the Dail and the Cabinet in October 1997, is scheduled to appear as the second witness in Dublin Castle today, the tribunal has confirmed.
Although his appearance has been put back several times in the past week, further delays are not anticipated. The first witness today, Mr William Barrett of Anglo Irish Bank, is not expected to spend long in the witness-box.
The former Fianna Fail politician is likely to spend two days giving evidence and in cross-examination. Most of this evidence will concern the single meeting he had with Mr James Gogarty, the tribunal's main witness, in his home in Swords in June 1989.
Mr Gogarty alleges that Mr Burke was paid £80,000 at this meeting in return for using his political influence to have lands owned by Mr Gogarty's company, Joseph Murphy Structural Engineering, rezoned for development purposes.
Mr Burke says he received a political donation of £30,000, but insisted no favours were asked for or given. The two men were introduced by the developer Mr Michael Bailey, a Fianna Fail cumann member in north Dublin, who also attended the meeting.
Mr Burke may also be questioned about his contacts with the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, before he was appointed to the Cabinet in June 1997. At different times, Mr Ahern has given varying accounts of the investigations he made into the allegations then circulating about Mr Burke.
Mr Burke's evidence in this respect has enormous potential for embarrassing the Taoiseach, who has never divulged the content of his conversations with his colleague at this time. Mr Burke furnished the tribunal with a statement earlier this year but, contrary to some reports, he has not supplied a second statement. However, it is understood that in recent interviews with tribunal lawyers, he has provided some fresh information.
The only other witness scheduled to appear this week is Mr Frank Connolly, the journalist who broke the story of Mr Gogarty's allegations. Mr Connolly gave evidence in May but his cross-examination by lawyers for JMSE has not been completed.
Yesterday the tribunal heard evidence from two of the main management figures in JMSE throughout the 1980s, Mr Marcus Sweeney and Mr Gerry Downes. Both men were recruited by the former chief executive officer, the late Mr Liam Conroy, and ended up on one side of a bitter management dispute, with Mr Gogarty and the owner of the company, Mr Joseph Murphy snr, on the other.
As matters deteriorated, Mr Gogarty and Mr Murphy effectively staged a boardroom coup and the other men found themselves locked out of the company they had been running for the previous six years.
Yesterday's evidence dredged up some of the allegations and counter-allegations of this period, the relevance being that it may add to or detract from Mr Gogarty's credibility as a witness in other matters.
The picture that emerged was that of a company with some unusual management practices, to say the least. Mr Sweeney, a civil engineer who acted as managing director from 1982 to 1989, told the tribunal that Mr Conroy regularly received sterling payments issued on foot of invoices received from Pro-Eng, a Guernsey-based shelf company.
The invoices, for amounts averaging about £2,500, were ostensibly for services in specific areas, such as advice given in "bunker-welding techniques". However, Mr Conroy had no technical qualifications.
Mr Sweeney said he saw no reason to question the invoices. He understood them to be part of an agreement between Mr Conroy and Mr Murphy.
He was asked about Mr Gogarty's allegation that the company operated a "slush fund" from which benefits were paid to executives. Mr Sweeney said he was not aware of any such fund. But he referred to "one minor issue", in which money was paid out in cash each week to pay for Mr Conroy's housekeeper.
Mr Downes, the financial controller at JMSE, said the amount involved was about £40 to £60 a week. He told Mr Frank Callanan SC, for Mr Gogarty, that these payments were not listed in the company's accounts. The money was realised from the sale of scrap steel, he said. This was a "totally unique" transaction.
Mr Sweeney recalled the atmosphere in the company at the time of the dispute in 1988/89. Mr Gogarty's relations with Mr Conroy were "poisonous" because Mr Gogarty believed Mr Conroy has usurped his relationship with Mr Murphy. He was antagonistic towards Mr Sweeney because the latter had usurped his job, the witness said.
Mr Sweeney said Mr Gogarty's beliefs "fed" Mr Murphy's concerns about the running of the company under Mr Conroy, and there was "a major dust-up". But there never was any conspiracy between Mr Conroy and him, he insisted.
The tribunal resumes at 10.30 a.m. this morning.