Mr Ray Burke told the tribunal he held £20,000 sterling in his home for nearly six months before finding time to lodge it.
He said he withdrew the money from his Jersey account in July 1994 and lodged it in his Irish account on January 3rd, 1995. During that period the money had been left in a safe in his home.
"What was the point in keeping £20,000 cash in the house?" Mr Patrick Hanratty SC, for the tribunal, asked. Mr Burke said it was not a deliberate decision. It was "a particularly traumatic and frenetic" time in his political life, he said. "I just didn't get around to doing it. That's all that happened. You can see Indians behind every tree if you want to . . . "
Mr Hanratty pointed out that Mr Burke lost six months' interest because of his delay in lodging the money. He also had to pay over £300 in bank charges because it was a cash transaction. "I chose to deal in cash," Mr Burke said.
The sum of £20,000 sterling would have converted into a greater amount in punts, Mr Hanratty pointed out, so why was an exact sum of £20,000 lodged in the Irish account? He suggested the £20,000 lodged in January 1995 was "an entirely different" £20,000.
"Well, Mr chairman, we are here about fact," Mr Burke said. `I'm giving you the facts as I have them and I'm sure if the questioner has some fact to prove the speculation that he has just given us, he'll produce it. I haven't seen it."
He rejected suggestions that he was presenting an implausible scenario. "I've given you the truth of the situation, under oath in this box to the best of my recollection, and that's as much as I can give you," he said. If the funds were illegitimate, then he would have spent the money.
He also said he was not the "the only person in the country that would have dealt in cash in his time".
