Mr Michael Lowry told the Moriarty tribunal that Mr David Austin gave him a loan of £147,000 to buy a house in Blackrock, Co Dublin, as "an act of friendship".
The house at 43 Carysfort Avenue was acquired in 1996 by the builder Mr Michael Holly, who gave Mr Lowry first option on it. Mr Lowry, then a minister, had been looking for "appropriate residential accommodation" in Dublin.
Mr Lowry borrowed the money to purchase the house from Irish Nationwide. It was estimated that a total of £147,000 would also be needed to renovate it and Mr Lowry intended to provide these funds himself. Despite the fact that he had £140,000 in an account in the Channel Islands, he borrowed the money from Mr Austin.
Mr Lowry said he had not previously told the tribunal about this loan, raised through an account opened in October 1996 (with Mr Austin's assistance) in the Isle of Man, because he did not believe it to be "relevant". He was also conscious at that time of his "potential tax liability" arising from his "dealings with Ben Dunne".
Mr Austin was a "non-resident" and, as such, he was the one who made the "suggestion and the decision" as to how the funds would be transferred for the purpose of the loan. An account was set up in the Irish Nationwide in the Isle of Man in Mr Lowry's name.
Rightly or wrongly, Mr Lowry said, he had decided that the information was not relevant to the tribunal at the time he last gave evidence in 1999. He regretted the fact that he had not raised it earlier, but this was "not intentional".