Mr Roger Copsey, in his direct evidence and under cross-examination, did not give examining counsel an easy time. On Thursday, for example, on the day the Dail Public Accounts Committee's much-acclaimed and cost-effective report on DIRT was published, his responses indirectly called into question the planning tribunal's raison d'etre, it could be argued - not once but twice.
The first time was in his response to questioning by Mr Hugh Mohan, for Mr Dermot Ahern TD, when he was being asked to clarify yet again the reason why he, as JMSE financial director, had arranged for £30,000 to be made available to Mr James Gogarty. He had been told, he said, it was for a political donation - and he had no problem with that.
"What responsibility did you have for a political donation of cash?" Mr Copsey was clearly rattled: "Any implication that I would have countenanced something illegal, I actually take offence at." It never entered his head there was a question of bribery involved.
The theme of Mr Gogarty's motivation surfaced again later that day in response to Mr Frank Callanan SC, for Mr Gogarty, who was seeking clarification from the former financial director that his client had "procured" money from JMSE on his own authority to give Mr Burke. The word "procure" had a connotation, suggested Mr Copsey, that he could not accept but "that's what I'm informed". Mr Callanan put it bluntly: had Mr Gogarty been involved in a covert action to "effectively divert" his employer `s £30,000?
"If anyone had wanted to bribe a politician, I could think of many ways it could be done without leaving a paper trail all over the place involving me and Denis McArdle (solicitor for the Murphy land companies)." He, a chartered accountant, could think of "dozens of ways" of doing it and "nobody in the world would ever detect it".
Mr Callanan then asked whether Mr Copsey thought his client, after 20 years with JMSE and at an advanced stage in his pension negotiations and with a relatively young family, would want to put all this in jeopardy by "effecting a payment" unilaterally. And if Mr Gogarty was making payment without authority, "why would he communicate that to you as someone in frequent contact with Mr Murphy snr?"
He was not there to make a case one way or the other, the witness responded. He had been totally shocked to read Mr Gogarty's confession, "I participated in an alleged act of bribery". That assertion had been a matter of "absolute amazement" to the accountant who had asked himself whether it was reasonable for Mr Gogarty to have done that. He concluded that it "was unreasonable for Jim Gogarty to say that he had actively taken part in bribery".
As for himself, he "simply thought" he was being asked to make funds available for a political contribution that he assumed Mr Murphy snr was in agreement with.
He had met Mr Murphy prior to the commencement of the tribunal, he emphasised, under cross-examination: "He categorically told me he had no knowledge of a political contribution. Up to that time I assumed he knew about it."
Another interesting point to emerge, indirectly, from Mr Copsey's evidence was the relationship between the expatriate Kerryman who had founded the Murphy dynasty and a number of Englishmen, notably Mr Edgar Wadley, a key financial strategist, his solicitor Mr Chris Oakley and not least the former JMSE financial director, who conceded that he had been Mr Murphy snr's "eyes and ears" in Ireland - although the head of the Murphy group never relied on any one source for his information, he emphasised.
Remarkably, despite a bumpy start in this relationship, culminating in the collapse of a Murphy-owned bank, IFTC, in November 1981, with massive losses for the brothers Joe and John Murphy, that relationship had not been severed, Mr Callanan suggested.
Mr Copsey agreed and said the Murphy family had recovered something like 80 per cent of its losses on foot of professional indemnity insurance.
Mr Copsey emerged as a man with a good opinion of himself. He would brook no assumptions by counsel when it came to technical matters on accountancy - and especially in relation to tax matters, which he insisted was his speciality. This was evident in his dismissal of two references to the controversial £30,000 payment to Mr Ray Burke in the furnished documentation in relation to JMSE, one for "land enhancement" in a funds flow statement compiled by his colleague, Mr Tim O'Keeffe, and the other under the heading, "enhanced expenditure", in the working papers of auditor Mr John Bates.
The implication by the examining counsel was that these entries might provide the elusive empirical evidence of the alleged "bribery". Mr Copsey explained that the funds flow statement had no relevance for the accounts of any of the Murphy companies. As to the auditor's papers, Mr Bates had mistakenly sought tax relief on foot of a "political donation" - and subsequently had to pay it back when he found out his mistake.
The tribunal will hear from Mr O'Keeffe and Mr Bates next.