Millionaire businessman Mr Michael Smurfit was the donor who gave Senator Don Lydon a £5,000 contribution in 1992, it has emerged. Mr Lydon described Mr Smurfit to the tribunal as "one of my three very, very, very best friends".
Another businessman, Mr Christopher Jones, also gave the senator £5,000 in the same year.
Mr Lydon failed to disclose both payments, as well as a payment of £2,500 from Monarch Properties, to the Fianna Fáil inquiry into political donations three years ago.
Ballycullen Farms, a company owned by Mr Jones and his brother Gerry, gave Mr Frank Dunlop £17,500 to lobby councillors for the rezoning of its land at Ballycullen, south Dublin, Mr Dunlop has told the tribunal. Mr Lydon proposed the rezoning, which was passed.
Yesterday, he claimed he wasn't the only politician to have given inaccurate information to the Fianna Fáil inquiry. Several councillors had discovered they had received other payments since the inquiry was conducted.
Asked again why he had given incorrect information to the inquiry, he said he had no financial records at the time. "I just float through life and these things I don't remember."
Mr John Gallagher SC, for the tribunal, said the witness was a highly-educated psychologist and senator. It was strange that he failed to tell the inquiry of two payments of £5,000 and one of £2,500 he received in 1992.
"Well it might be strange, but it's the truth." The report was as accurate as his memory was at the time.
In December 2000, six months after the inquiry, Mr Lydon disclosed the payments to the tribunal. He didn't contact the party to correct his account because "it was all over".
Mr Lydon was questioned about his bank transactions in the weeks following Mr Dunlop's alleged payment to him of £3,000. Mr Dunlop has claimed he gave Mr Lydon this sum in cash on Monday, May 4th, 1992.
On the following day, Mr Lydon lodged £1,000 to his account. He said this was a relodgement of the same amount which had been withdrawn the previous Friday. He had withdrawn the money to buy curtains in Newtownards over the weekend, but hadn't used it.
He kept a lot of cash on hand for buying and selling furniture, which was his wife's hobby. "Wheeling and dealing" was what he did, and you could get a better price by paying cash.