It was, in his own words, the "red apple in the barrel" and he couldn't resist having a peek. Last Tuesday, Mr Justice Flood had the two boxes of Mr George Redmond's files brought to his office, where the seals were broken and he pored over the contents for a few hours.
The boxes were then taped up again and returned to the tribunal.
Armed with the knowledge he gleaned, Mr Justice Flood argued yesterday that files of the former assistant Dublin city and county manager were "crucial" to the operation of the tribunal.
He rejected the claim by the Criminal Assets Bureau, which had "produced but not furnished" copies of the documents to the tribunal last month, for privilege over the files.
It was an unsurprising outcome, arrived at by unorthodox means. Equally unsurprising was the news that the CAB intends to continue fighting the matter. A return to the High Court and even the Supreme Court in the autumn looks inevitable.
"This will involve yet more delay and not insignificant public cost," the chairman remarked, before reluctantly granting a three-week delay on court proceedings.
In the courts, the tribunal will find itself in battle not just with the CAB, but with the Director of Public Prosecutions and the Attorney General, who both argued to the tribunal that the CAB's interest should be given priority over that of the tribunal.
While the DPP backed the bureau in earlier proceedings, the AG has switched sides after Mr Redmond was charged with tax offences last month.
Yesterday, Mr Justice Flood rejected the assertion by the CAB that it should have the priority of public interest with regard to Mr Redmond's files. The bureau had made no claim that any or all of the documents were essential to its investigations, he noted, as the tribunal had.
But just what is the CAB up to? Consider the following facts. There was a Garda investigation into alleged planning corruption in 1989, which got nowhere. There was a second Garda investigation in 1997, which also got nowhere.
Then, out of the blue, someone rings the CAB last February 18th with a tip-off about Mr Redmond. The very next day, the former local government official is arrested at Dublin Airport. He is carrying £300,000 in cash and cheques.
On the same night, CAB officers seize documents from his home which are the subject of the present dispute. However, Mr Redmond himself had been preparing these files for the tribunal, with which he was in discussions at the time. So one effect of the tip-off was to deprive the tribunal of documents it was on the verge of receiving.
In effect, a one-day old investigation by the CAB superseded, or is seeking to supersede, the tribunal's investigation, which began more than a year before.
But who did the CAB consult with, if anyone, before moving against Mr Redmond? If, as Mr Justice Flood claimed yesterday, tribunals are established only "as a matter of last resort", where the Oireachtas considers no other option is appropriate and where there is "a public crisis of confidence", then what exactly is the role of the CAB?
Even more curiously, the CAB has willingly furnished some of the documents to other parties. Only last week, the tribunal got some from Fingal County Council. CAB officers had furnished the documents to the council and bureau lawyers alerted the tribunal legal team to this fact at an earlier court hearing.
Not unreasonably, Mr Redmond has also been furnished with copies of his own documents. The tribunal has started court proceedings to get the files from him, but this is being resisted.
In the chairman's view, the CAB's role is to "make individuals accountable" to the law. But as he conceded yesterday, it had now widened its brief to carry out what is "for all practical purposes a third general planning corruption inquiry". In other business yesterday, the chairman once again rejected allegations of unfair conduct made by Mr Garret Cooney SC, for the Murphy group. He said it was Mr Cooney and the legal team for Mr Michael Bailey who first introduced an adversarial element to proceedings "in very virulent language".
The tribunal heard submissions in private concerning the fitness of Mr Joseph Murphy snr to give evidence. The 82-year-old millionaire lives in Guernsey and has health problems which may prevent him giving evidence.
Finally, the chairman is to rule shortly whether to order Mr Bailey to provide details of his companies, their accounts and to give the tribunal access to his solicitor's client account. Mr Garrett Simons, for Mr Bailey, argued yesterday that such an extensive trawl though Mr Bailey's accounts was not justified as the issue at stake was a collateral one.
The tribunal will resume after a summer break in the second half of September.