Mr Joseph Murphy jnr had little contact with his father while growing up, apart from the monthly visits paid by Mr Murphy snr to Ireland, he told the Flood tribunal yesterday.
His mother died in 1962 when Joseph was three months old and he and his sister, Angela, were sent to live with relations, the Flynn family, at Arigna in Co Roscommon. The father married his second wife, Una, in 1968, the year he purchased Wilton Lodge, a mews at the back of No 23 Fitzwilton Place in Dublin. Mrs Una Murphy and the children moved to Carrick-on-Shannon when Joe jnr was 11 and started his secondary school education. The father, who was a permanent resident in Guernsey, would visit once a month and stay for "a day or two" at a time. He spent two and a half years at the Carrick school before being sent as a boarder to St Gerard's, Bray, where he took his Leaving Certificate.
He was not the studious type, he told Ms Patricia Dillon SC, for the tribunal. He had to resit the Leaving Certificate and then entered UCD to study economics and politics.
He had a bank account at the Bank of Ireland and was living at the family's Dublin home at Wilton Lodge, but there was never more than £800 in it at any time. "Presumably your father put the money into the account," Ms Dillon suggested, "as all fathers do?" "No, my mother [Una] did." He never finished his degree, in the event. Having had a taste of work for the Murphy Group in the summer months while a student, driving a lorry at Santry (JMSE headquarters), and later, as a labourer in London, he resolved to make his way in his father's world "from the ground floor up".
While working at Santry, he had not met the chief executive, Mr Liam Conroy. He had met the managing director, Mr Marcus Sweeney, but would have had no dealing with him. Similarly, he had met the JMSE chairman, Mr James Gogarty, periodically as well as other senior executives.
He had not consulted with Joseph snr, he replied to Ms Dillon when asked whether he had discussed his future with his father. He had not thought much about his position as his father's only son. That wasn't how he looked at things.
It did come up at times when there was "a bit of banter among the lads", but in general it was not something he dwelt on. He had never discussed his own position in the company with his father.
He admitted, however, that he had no real difficulty in getting a job with his father's firm when he went to London. Soon he was an agent (foreman) in charge of his own gang. He did not have his sights fixed on promotion to executive level, he insisted.
The events leading to the boardroom putsch involving the former chief executive, Mr Conroy, and chairman, Mr Gogarty, were to thrust him into the limelight alongside his father, when Mr Murphy snr was persuaded his interests were threatened under Mr Conroy's administration.