The Moriarty tribunal is to hold public hearings into contacts between the former chairman of the Revenue Commissioners, Séamus Paircéir, and businessman Ben Dunne, allegedly arranged with the help of former Taoiseach Charles Haughey.
The hearings are to begin on Tuesday and will lead to the first hearing of public evidence since the tribunal rose for the Easter break in 2004.
The two men are understood to have met in the mid-1980s when Mr Dunne was concerned about huge potential tax liabilities that could arise from the Dunne family trust, the Dunnes Stores Settlement Trust.
The McCracken tribunal, which sat in 1997, heard about a meeting in 1988 between another former chairman of the Revenue, Philip Curran, and Mr Dunne, during which the same topic was raised. The then Taoiseach, Mr Haughey, helped set up that meeting. Mr Justice McCracken, in his report, found that nothing untoward arose from the event.
However, there was no mention during that tribunal of an earlier meeting between Mr Dunne and another Revenue chairman, allegedly arranged with the involvement of Mr Haughey. The McCracken and Moriarty tribunals have investigated payments from Mr Dunne to Mr Haughey and whether any favours were done in return. No improper actions by Mr Haughey have been discovered.
Mr Dunne could not be contacted yesterday. Mr Paircéir, who has already given evidence to the Moriarty tribunal about his involvement in matters concerning Mr Haughey's own tax affairs, said he believed the tribunal would not want him to comment prior to the hearings.
The Dunnes trust was set up in 1964 for 21 years and at the end of this period the trustees decided to extent its life for a further 21 years. The move was contested by the Revenue, which sought to impose a €30 million tax bill on members of the Dunne family.
However, in 1988 the tax bill was dismissed following a three-day hearing before the Appeal Commissioners.
The date of the contact or meeting between Mr Paircéir and Mr Dunne to be inquired into by the tribunal is not known but is thought to have been in the mid-1980s.
In the early 1980s the Revenue was told by the receiver to the Gallagher group, Laurence Crowley, of a £300,000 payment to Mr Haughey by the group, linked to a land deal that had never gone ahead. Mr Crowley suspected the land deal was a sham.
Mr Paircéir decided the prospect of having such a view accepted by the courts was uncertain and rather than risk the legal costs involved in taking a case, he decided to treat the transaction as a bona fide one and to raise capital gains tax on the profit Mr Haughey had made.
If a court had ruled the transaction was a sham, then the £300,000 could have been recovered and the money given to the Revenue by the Gallagher group liquidator.
Mr Paircéir retired as Revenue chairman in 1987. In 1991 he resigned as chairman of the Custom House Docks Development Authority after comments by Mr Haughey on radio that he should "step aside" pending an investigation into dealings concerning the former Johnston Mooney and O'Brien site at Ballsbridge, Dublin.
Mr Paircéir was a director of United Property Holdings, the company that bought the Ballsbridge site from Johnston Mooney and O'Brien and sold it on before it ended up in the ownership of Telecom Éireann.
