The former chairman of the Revenue Commissioners, Philip Curran, said he had forgotten by the time of the McCracken (Dunnes Payments) tribunal that his predecessor had met Ben Dunne.
Mr Curran said he told the 1997 McCracken tribunal, following receipt of a general "trawling" question from it, that he had met Mr Dunne in March 1988 at the request of the then taoiseach, Charles Haughey.
However he did not tell the tribunal that his predecessor, Séamus Paircéir, had also met Mr Dunne.
Mr Curran said he must have seen a Revenue briefing note of March 1988 stating that Mr Dunne had a number of meetings with his predecessor.
"It would not have surprised me because chairmen sometimes meet people."
By 1997, at the time of the tribunal, the issue did not occur to him, and if it had he would have thought other people had dealt with the matter. He said that when the tribunal had contacted him in 1997, by way of the Revenue, he "felt it was best" to mention his meeting with Mr Dunne. "It didn't occur to me that I should talk about meetings others had."
Mr Curran was a commissioner with the Revenue from 1983 and was appointed chairman in 1987. He retired in 1990. He said he was requested to go to Mr Haughey's office in March 1988 and did so. Mr Haughey told him Mr Dunne wanted a meeting to discuss his tax affairs.
A meeting with Mr Dunne and his adviser, Noel Fox, ensued. Mr Dunne seemed to "talk around" his problem and Mr Curran suggested Mr Dunne go away and figure out what exactly he wanted. Mr Dunne said "a man couldn't ask for fairer than that", Mr Curran said. Mr Dunne never came back to him on the matter.
He said Mr Haughey was a very hands-on taoiseach, who liked to meet people and who wanted to be personally involved in things.
While chairman he met taxpayers with problems rarely, three or four times a year.
