Mr Denis O'Brien looked an angry man when he walked down the stairs from the Moriarty tribunal yesterday. "Another difficult day," he said grimly to a group of reporters as he passed, seemingly alluding to the type of line that might be used later when describing his day.
It would be a mild enough description. "Somebody is telling lies here," Mr John Coughlan SC, said during Mr O'Brien's testimony. Mr O'Brien agreed and said it wasn't him.
Either three executives from the Norwegian firm Telenor travelled to Dublin last week to give false testimony on oath to the tribunal or Mr O'Brien is currently giving false testimony. At this stage it is impossible that it can be any other way.
At issue is a reasonably uninteresting matter. Did Telenor give $50,000 to Fine Gael in December 1995 on its own behalf or on behalf of Esat Digifone?
Everyone agrees Mr O'Brien suggested the payment be made and that Esat Digifone later reimbursed Telenor. Mr O'Brien says Telenor "forced" Digifone to do this. Telenor says it was always intended that the money would be reimbursed.
If it was wrong for Esat Digifone to give money to Fine Gael so soon after it won a second mobile phone licence competition, it was wrong for Telenor, a 40 per cent shareholder in Digifone, to make such a payment. So the truth about that is not the important matter. What is important is Mr O'Brien's credibility.
As well as the political donation, a number of matters are being examined by the tribunal which are not at all clear, to put it mildly, and about which his credibility is crucial.
One such matter received some airing yesterday. The political donation to Fine Gael was originally sought by the late Mr David Austin and was lodged to one of his offshore accounts. Mr Austin was a close friend of Mr O'Brien. He was also a friend of Mr Michael Lowry, the minister who oversaw the mobile phone licence competition.
In September 1998 Mr O'Brien had a telephone conversation with Mr Peter Muldowney, an Irishman and a stockbroker with the New York firm Donaldson, Lufkin and Jenrette, a firm now owned by Credit Suisse. Mr Muldowney worked closely with Mr O'Brien on the floating of Esat Telecom in the US and they would speak a number of times each week.
Mr O'Brien asked that Mr Muldowney buy $300,000 worth of Esat Digifone shares for Mr Noel Walshe, Mr O'Brien's father-in-law. Mr Muldowney bought the shares but placed them in Mr Austin's account. The shares were later paid for by Mr O'Brien.
The tribunal has been told in a letter from DLJ that the confusion arose because Mr Austin's name was mentioned during the conversation about Mr Walshe.
Mr Austin died on November 1st, 1998. The shares were moved to Mr Walshe's account on November 16th, even though at that stage the only people who had the right to issue instructions in relation to Mr Austin's affairs were his executors and they had issued no such instructions.