A major conflict in evidence has emerged between the former minister for foreign affairs, Mr Ray Burke, and the Murphy group over their respective accounts of the meeting at which Mr Burke was given a substantial sum of money.
Mr Burke was given £20,000 in cash and £10,000 by cheque during the meeting in his house in Swords in June 1989, counsel for Joseph Murphy Structural Engineering indicated yesterday. Yet Mr Burke says the "contribution" of £30,000 which he received was "entirely in cash". He counted the money after the two men he said brought it - Mr James Gogarty, of JMSE, and the developer, Mr Michael Bailey - had left, he told the Dail in September 1997.
Mr Burke, who has accused Mr Gogarty of being the author of a "campaign of lies" against him, agrees with Mr Gogarty that the sum of cash paid over by JMSE was £30,000. The two also agree that the money came in two envelopes. However, Mr Gog arty asserts that Mr Burke also received a cheque for £10,000 and he assumes that Mr Bailey contributed a further £40,000.
Continuing his cross-examination of Mr Gogarty yesterday, Mr Garrett Cooney SC, for JMSE, produced bank stubs and statements showing the movement of two payments for £20,000 and £10,000 through the firm's accounts around the presumed date of the Burke meeting. Mr Gogarty had directed the drawing down of these funds, he alleged.
Mr Cooney's case is that, although several other JMSE executives were involved in handling the money, Mr Gogarty, then chairman of the firm, was "the boss". Mr Gogarty denies this and says that the money came from funds controlled by Mr Roger Copsey, who he says was acting chief executive at the time.
In his most sustained attack on the witness yet, Mr Cooney alleged that Mr Gogarty had:
sought a £10,000 back-hander from the auctioneer who sold the north Dublin lands at the centre of the tribunal's investigations;
negotiated with Mr Bailey to sell the lands for £2.4 million seven weeks before they were actually sold to Mr Bailey for £2.3 million. Just what is alleged to have happened to the £100,000 was not made clear;
threatened to "destroy" the Murphys if he did not get an extra £400,000 in severance payments;
lied to a TD that more than half the lands sold to Mr Bailey were later rezoned, when this was not the case.
The then 72-year-old Mr Gogarty might not be everyone's idea of a mastermind, cutting deals and claiming back-handers at the same time as he negotiated his pension and a six-figure settlement with the ESB. However, Mr Cooney claimed that the witness had "absolute discretion" over the sale of the lands. He also alleged that hand-written notes written by Mr Gogarty were clear evidence that he looked for a back-hander from auctioneer Mr Fred Duffy.
Mr Gogarty's story was a series of "malicious inventions", counsel claimed on a number of occasions.
"Lord, if I had a patent on all these inventions, I'd be a bloody millionaire", responded the witness in one of his few forays into humour.
Having collaborated closely during the early part of the tribunal, the legal teams for JMSE and Mr Bailey seem to be drifting apart. On Tuesday, Mr Cooney spoke of the "rapport or understanding" between Mr Gogarty and Mr Bailey and how this led Mr Gogarty to give money to Mr Burke. Yesterday, he questioned Mr Gogarty at length on his relations with Mr Bailey and the circumstances surrounding the land sale. The two men were in contact about five times during this period, Mr Gogarty said.
Mr Gogarty has alleged that Mr Bailey gave him an unsolicited cheque for £50,000 at a meeting in August 1990 in the Skylon Hotel. He never cashed this cheque.
Mr Cooney also asked how the witness could say in evidence last month that he did not know what had happened to the lands at the centre of the inquiry when he had told Mr Tommy Broughan TD in 1997 that more than half the 712 acres had been rezoned.
Mr Gogarty said that counsel was trying to make him out to be a liar. He was only reporting hearsay. He did not know that this was not true.
Mr Cooney will continue his cross-examination of Mr Gogarty today.