Moriarty tribunal: Ben Dunne said he still felt that the first major payment to Charles Haughey came late in 1987 and not early that year.
Mr Dunne was being asked about a May 1987 cheque for £282,000 sterling made out to Tripleplan that went to Mr Haughey's benefit.
The payment was not disclosed to the 1997 McCracken tribunal and was discovered by the Moriarty tribunal.
"I have always had difficulty with that Tripleplan payment," Mr Dunne told senior counsel John Coughlan, for the tribunal.
He pointed out that he had not mentioned the payment in the case he took against the Dunne family trust and his siblings in the early 1990s, when he disclosed other payments to Mr Haughey and other matters that would be damaging to the Dunnes Stores group.
He accepted he signed the cheque but said that from the day he heard about it from the tribunal, he had never remembered a connection between it and Mr Haughey.
Mr Haughey was appointed taoiseach in March 1987. The Tripleplan cheque was written by a Dunnes Stores executive in Northern Ireland who was asked to do so by Dunnes trustee Noel Fox and who had received authorisation to do so from Mr Dunne.
Tripleplan was a shelf company controlled by the late Cayman Islands banker, John Furze. Mr Dunne said he had always felt that "the Furze payment" was the first payment to Mr Haughey. This was a cheque for £182,639 sterling made out to John Furze in late November 1987.
"I never knew the Tripleplan payment was a payment to Mr Haughey," he said. He added that it was not necessarily the case that he knew at the time what the purpose of the cheque was.
"I find it strange that I have no recall of the Tripleplan payment. It was such an extraordinary payment in terms of where it was going."
Mr Coughlan said the effect of the payment was that it made it seem that the approach from the late Des Traynor, to Mr Fox, seeking money for Mr Haughey from Mr Dunne, must have come early in 1987.
"Could it be that you have no recollection because it clearly contradicts the evidence that you gave to the McCracken tribunal?" Mr Coughlan asked.
"No, sir," said Mr Dunne.
