The lawyer representing the former assistant Dublin city and county manager, Mr George Redmond, is expected to be next to cross-examine Mr James Gogarty when the tribunal continues this morning.
Fresh from a two-week break, Mr Gogarty (81) conceded little under cross-examination yesterday by counsel for a former accountant with the Murphy group, Mr Gerry Downes.
In the absence of Mr Redmond's barristers, who withdrew at the end of January, his solicitor, Mr Anthony Harris, is likely to conduct a brief cross-examination on behalf of his client.
It is now almost certain that the former minister for foreign affairs, Mr Ray Burke, will not avail of his right to cross-examine the man who first made allegations that he was bribed by builders. Mr Burke has not been seen in Dublin Castle since the tribunal started and his entire legal team withdrew several months ago.
Legal sources expect that Mr Burke will, however, retain lawyers when he comes to give evidence in the tribunal.
The other legal teams who will cross-examine the witness in the coming days include those representing the Garda and Mr Gogarty himself.
Counsel for the Murphy group has indicated it wishes to re-examine the witness briefly, and the tribunal legal team will then perform a "sweeper" role by dealing with any outstanding matters. Mr Gogarty's cross-examination is, therefore, likely to finish by the end of this week.
Mr Downes, a minor figure in the affairs of the tribunal, who worked for the Murphy group between 1982 and 1988, has been legally represented for the duration of the tribunal but his senior counsel, Mr Brian Leonard SC, yesterday completed his questioning of Mr Gogarty in a morning.
Yesterday's session started on a low-key, even cordial note, but quickly degenerated into a tetchy, abusive rerun of Mr Gogarty's two previous cross-examinations.
The witness repeatedly abused Mr Downes, the legal profession and his former employers, accusing the latter - not for the first time - of "fiddling" their accounts and denying him his due pension.
However, he admitted that he kept £180,000 in an offshore account in the Isle of Man until 1993, when he declared it in the tax amnesty introduced by the then Fianna Fail/Labour government.
Between 1990 and 1992, he made lodgements of between £12,000 and £25,000 into this account. This compares to Mr Gogarty's annual salary of £23,500 before he retired from the Murphy group some years previously.
Mr Gogarty also conceded that he was in receipt of a contributory pension from the State, and not a non-contributory pension as he said in earlier evidence.
Mr Leonard's cross-examination ranged from the present to as far back as 1951. Throughout, he had to endure a stream of banter and abuse from the witness, who was asked by the chairman at one stage to refrain from cross-examining counsel.
Mr Gogarty also alleged that the management team of which Mr Downes was a part abused expenses by paying for perks such as car tax, home heating, swimming pool membership and credit cards.
With Mr Gogarty making a number of colourful references to the alleged drinking habits of Mr Downes, Mr Leonard must have been left wondering whether it was all worth it, especially since most of the matters under scrutiny yesterday had little to do with the tribunal's terms of reference.