Manchester donors: The identities are known of four of those who attended the Manchester meeting in September 1994 where Taoiseach Bertie Ahern received an £8,000 payment.
In his Dáil statement yesterday, Mr Ahern said the function in the Four Seasons Hotel was organised by the then owner of Aer Arann, the late Tim Kilroe, with whom he said he had "a long personal history".
"Mr Kilroe presented the monies to me and I presume he had collected them as well," Mr Ahern said.
Originally from Co Roscommon, Mr Kilroe emigrated to Manchester in 1939, aged 15, taking his first job working on a factory floor.
By 1968, he and his wife had set up their own company in the construction industry, and the Kilroe Group was to grow rapidly. By 1992, it employed 1,000 people and had a turnover of more than £100 million.
Mr Kilroe, an avid horse-racing fan, had established his own airline - Air Kilroe - before buying into Aer Arann, then a regional operator linking Galway and the Aran Islands.
In 1977, he bought a derelict farm at Hale Barns near Manchester, initially to develop it as a family home.
He later converted the barn into a restaurant and later a 154-bedroom hotel, the Four Seasons. It was sold to the Marriott group in 1999. Mr Kilroe died in 2004.
Mr Ahern also confirmed yesterday that John Kennedy attended the Manchester dinner in 1994. A multimillionaire property developer who emigrated from Ireland in the 1950s, Mr Kennedy is the brother of Joseph Kennedy, the current chairman of Knock airport.
The now retired Mr Kennedy last week supported the Taoiseach's account of the circumstances in which the £8,000 payment was made, though he said that Mr Ahern did not speak at the dinner, while the Taoiseach had previously said that he did.
Mr Kennedy said: "This particular dinner, a private dinner, happened where, I think, he was over for a football match at United. There were no speeches at this particular one.
"There were 25 or 27 Irishmen there and somebody came up with the idea of making a collection, something to give to Bertie, as Bertie had very often in the past spoken at dinners for us . . .
"And he was always happy to do that because he liked to talk about the progress that was made in the Irish economy. And he liked to talk about things in the North of Ireland, which we all wanted to talk about.
"This was just a private dinner, over for a match at United. He was given this money with no conditions. It wasn't a loan, it was just given to him to do what he wanted with it."
A third Manchester-based businessman yesterday confirmed that he attended the function at the Four Seasons Hotel.
Micheál Wall, originally from Cong in Co Mayo, told The Irish Times he had attended the meeting "in a business capacity". He owned a bus hire company in the city at the time.
Mr Wall, who has lived in Manchester for the past 47 years, said he was not involved in organising the collection for Mr Ahern and declined to say whether he had contributed to it.
Speaking to RTÉ, he said someone in the group had decided a collection would take place, but that the then minister for finance was unaware until the money was presented to him.
Mr Wall said: "If I was him, I would have found it awfully embarrassing to refuse to accept it. Most people there didn't know that he had matrimonial problems at the time. I didn't know he had matrimonial problems."
He said the businessmen had "warmed" to Mr Ahern - who spoke to each of them individually - and the money was given not for any political reason but as "a goodwill gesture".
The only other person who is known to have attended the dinner is Senator Tony Kett, a close friend of the Taoiseach.
A hospital administrator, Mr Kett was previously a member of Dublin City Council, a position to which he was co-opted in 1988 to fill the vacancy that followed the retirement of Bertie Ahern.