A heated exchange between lawyers for the Murphy Group and the tribunal arose yesterday as Mr George Redmond was being questioned about his bank account.
Mr Garrett Cooney SC, for the Murphy Group, had said Mr Pat Hanratty SC, for the tribunal, had asked Mr Redmond about his accounts in 1988-89.
One of the purposes was to establish the source of quite large net sums put into the account in November 1989. Mr Redmond had said these sums could also have been from pension and salary cheques.
Mr Cooney said it would appear that until June 1989 he was drawing salary cheques and after that pension cheques. It would appear that he had not lodged to his account any of those cheques from June until November 1989. It seemed that the lodgment referred to of some £50,000 must logically have included the salary or pension cheques.
Mr Redmond agreed.
Mr Cooney said it seemed that the purpose of this line of questioning by Mr Hanratty was to suggest that these figures supported Mr Gogarty's allegation that Mr Redmond received £15,000 from Mr Joseph Murphy in June 1989, even though Mr Redmond denied this.
Mr Hanratty said he wanted to reject the outrageous suggestion that Mr Cooney was putting to the witness. A perusal of the transcript would show that the purpose of questioning was to ascertain whether this was possible. It was never suggested as an assertion.
"This line of questioning appears to demonstrate a fairly comprehensive level of consultation between somebody on Mr Cooney's side and Mr Redmond because Mr Redmond himself did not give evidence to this effect and his evidence in chief did not suggest that this £15,000, which at the time that I was finished was still unaccounted for, included pension cheques or salary cheques," Mr Hanratty said.
Mr Cooney said: "Can I say on my own behalf, and on behalf of all my colleagues, that the last suggestion made by Mr Hanratty is disgraceful and appalling and it's false and wilfully false."
Mr Hanratty said if Mr Cooney said that no such consultation took place, he accepted that. Mr Redmond said he wanted to refute any suggestion of consultation.