The Fianna Fail TD, Mr Denis Foley, was unable to explain to the tribunal yesterday how he obtained a contact number for Mr Padraig Collery which he could have got only last year, some months after he supposedly last spoke to the former Guinness & Mahon banker.
Mr Foley said he could not recall who gave him the phone number, which was for a direct line to an office where Mr Collery worked in 1999.
Nor could Mr Foley recall how he obtained another five numbers for Mr Collery, including a mobile number which operated from 1998 and a number for Irish Life, where the banker worked between 1997 and 1998.
The tribunal heard that Mr Foley had more contact numbers for Mr Collery than for anyone else in his phone book.
The TD was repeatedly pressed on whether he could have contacted Mr Collery after the two met at Dublin Airport in August 1998, or whether he might have contacted a third party to discuss his offshore funds.
However, Mr Foley denied both possibilities.
He also repeated that neither he nor anyone acting on his behalf asked Mr Collery to keep his name from the tribunal. In previous evidence, Mr Foley said it was a "coincidence" that Mr Collery concealed documents from the tribunal which would have shown he was an Ansbacher depositor.
Counsel for the tribunal, Mr John Coughlan SC, said Mr Foley had "great recollection" of matters in 1998, 1988 and even 1979, but on some more recent matters such as the phone numbers his recollection was "surprisingly faulty".
"How do you not recollect?" asked Mr Coughlan. "This was quite recently. It was in the eye of the storm. In fact, the numbers for 1997 and 1998 were numbers which you must have got either immediately prior to or during or subsequent to the McCracken tribunal."
Or else they, like the mobile number, were obtained only after the establishment of the Moriarty tribunal, Mr Coughlan suggested.
Mr Foley replied: "I've wracked my brains but I can't recollect when I put in those numbers. I'm on oath."
The chairman of the tribunal, Mr Justice Moriarty, suggested to Mr Foley that there must have been a "likely inclination" to telephone Mr Collery after their airport meeting, given the offshore funds were increasingly pressing on his mind.
However, Mr Foley repeated that he did not contact Mr Collery after the meeting, adding: "I just did not know what way to turn."
Later the tribunal heard Mr Foley had written nine days ago to Hamilton Ross and Mr Barry Benjamin, who now controlled the Ansbacher deposits, in the Cayman Islands, requesting the release of his offshore funds to his solicitor for the purpose of discharging his liabilities.
The tribunal was not told, however, whether a reply was received.
Under cross-examination by his own counsel, Mr David Barniville, Mr Foley repeated that he was not a supporter of the former Taoiseach, Mr Charles Haughey. Mr Foley said he never socialised with him and never visited his home in Kerry or Dublin.
Asked about the photograph which had featured in newspapers of Mr Foley with Mr Haughey at the Mount Brandon Hotel in Tralee, the TD replied: "I was obliged to attend there."
Finally Mr Barniville asked Mr Foley whether he accepted that people might be entitled to feel angry and perhaps let down by his actions.
Mr Foley replied: "It is a matter which I deeply regret for the hurt I have caused to my family, my colleagues, the constituents of North Kerry."
Mr Barniville added: "And it's a matter which I think you . . ."
"I apologise sincerely," said Mr Foley.
