Within a month of becoming taoiseach in 1987, Charles Haughey asked the chairman of the Revenue Commissioners to meet Ben Dunne, the tribunal heard yesterday.
The new government came in on March 10th and a Revenue note of April 13th recorded the fact that Séamus Páircéir was to meet Mr Dunne later that month.
Mr Páircéir said he could recall Mr Haughey asking him to meet with Mr Dunne. He told Jerry Healy SC, for the tribunal, that he could not recall anything else about the request.
He agreed with Mr Healy that he had at least 10 contacts with two members of the Dunne family trust, Frank Bowen and Noel Fox, in the two years prior to the request from Mr Haughey.
He did not know why Mr Haughey was "invoked" to arrange the meeting, which could have been arranged by the trustees.
Mr Páircéir was asked about his decision to reduce the amount of interest due on a tax bill from the Dunnes trust by £62,000. He said he could not remember why he allowed the concession but presumed it was to speed up the payment, which at £3.6 million was an enormous sum for the Exchequer when it was short of funds.
He said "certainly not" when asked if he had been put under any pressure by a third party, to make the concession.
At the time of his first meeting with Mr Dunne there was an appeal pending from the trust against a capital gains tax bill of £38.8 million. Mr Páircéir said he was prepared to settle if the figure was correct. He did not think the Revenue would lose the pending appeal, but he was aware that there was always a risk. Mr Páircéir said when he met with Mr Dunne he was starting out from a lower base point than that used for the £38.8 million assessment. It was from this that a possible settlement figure of £16 million arose, he said.
When Mr Dunne and Mr Fox came to see Mr Páircéir in July 1987, Mr Páircéir had a settlement form prepared by his officials. In the event, no deal was agreed.
Mr Páircéir said he was away on holidays in August and due to retire on September 11th, 1987. His involvement in Revenue affairs declined. He said he was surprised by the content of a note from September 10th, indicating he was to have further negotiations that day.
Mr Páircéir said he "certainly was not going to negotiate anything on the day before I retired". Asked if there was a practice of outgoing chairmen briefing a new chairman about matters that were outstanding, Mr Páircéir said he did not think so.
He said he was asked in 1988 to do some work for Mr Dunne on the pending appeal and produced a paper for which he was paid £10,000, plus VAT, in advance. He told Mr Justice Michael Moriarty that there was no code in place at the time covering retired Revenue officials working in the private sector.
Asked if Mr Dunne had ever indicated he was hoping Mr Páircéir would reveal judgments formed by the Revenue on the case, Mr Páircéir said: "Never." He told Mr Hugh O'Neill SC, for the Dunne trust, that he had not been asked to and had not conferred any favours on the trust.
The chairman adjourned the tribunal until a date to be announced.
