Fianna Fail would have no problem in putting Mr Ray Burke out to grass if his speech to the Dail did not work, a party colleague allegedly told Mr Joseph Murphy jnr, on the day the former minister for foreign affairs addressed the State.
On September 10th 1996, the day of the fateful Dail speech, Mr Murphy had been contacted at work by his wife, who said that "a Dermot" had phoned but would not give his second name.
Mr Murphy phoned Mr Dermot Ahern on his mobile and said he had intended to contact him earlier, having pieced together what had happened regarding the £30,000 payment to Mr Burke, from information gleaned through Mr Roger Copsey, the former JMSE financial director, solicitors of the land companies, etc. "I wanted to clear up the information."
At two previous meetings with Mr Ahern he had conveyed that he had no knowledge of any payments made to Mr Burke or any other politician, based on a review of the company's cheque journal and other records. However, he had not said that was a full examination of the accounts, as Mr Ahern had indicated.
Mr Ahern, who was busy, thanked Mr Murphy for the phone call and came back to him within 20 minutes. He said Mr Burke was making an important speech to the Dail: "They wanted to help him as much as possible. He wanted to know if JMSE had made financial contributions to other political parties so that Ray Burke could use it in his speech. He said it would be `a good line' or `ammunition' with which Mr Burke could attack the opposition parties."
Mr Murphy said he had replied that JMSE had made small contributions of £300 to £500, "in good faith around election time", and intimated he would "not be happy if they used JMSE in this way" in the Ray Burke statement: "Mr Ahern agreed that that would not be fair."
Mr Murphy had asked Mr Ahern how it was looking for Fianna Fail: "He said they were anxious to avoid a tribunal of inquiry. If Ray Burke's speech did not work, they would have no problem in putting him out to grass."
Mr Ahern had not remembered that, counsel suggested, when he gave his evidence to the tribunal: "To be fair, in the witness box Mr Ahern had some difficulty, but all of that conversation occurred." It was "inconceivable" that he would not have told Mr Ahern what he knew, given that Mr Burke's solicitors had written to the Murphy legal team "seeking out what we knew".