Mr Joseph Murphy jnr denied that he had known about the £30,000 payment by JMSE to Mr Ray Burke at the time of his meetings with Mr Dermot Ahern.
Mr Murphy was being cross-examined by Mr Frank Callanan SC, representing the former JMSE chairman, Mr James Gogarty, who said: "You were privy to and actively involved in and present for the payment to Mr Ray Burke - and you knew all about it from the start."
Mr Murphy said Mr Gogarty had changed the date of the meeting in Mr Burke's house three times in evidence to the tribunal. On the first date, June 8th, 1989, Mr Murphy said he was in London. On the second, June 10th, he was at the funeral of Mrs Mary Elizabeth Flynn, and was "back in London" for the third. "I had no hand, act or part in any payment to Mr Burke."
Mr Callanan asked how he could conceivably offer assurances to Mr Ahern, that no payments had been made from JMSE and then go "straight to the offices of Mr Roger Copsey [JMSE's former financial director] to ask whether a payment of this kind had, in fact, been made?" It was a "glaring anomaly", counsel said.
Mr Murphy disputed the phrase "glaring anomaly", but not this part of Mr Ahern's evidence.
It was put to him that during his second meeting with Mr Ahern in Dublin in July 1996 he was "planning to take off immediately and go and talk to Roger Copsey". "That's what I did."
"You're asking the tribunal to accept your bona fides in your dealings with Mr Ahern and your inquiries?"
"Everything that I told him was in good faith," Mr Murphy said.