The Flood tribunal has provided some of the best comedic moments in a drawn out drama which has already had significant impact on some of its major players. Who, after all, can forget that star of the "dock", Mr James Gogarty.

I suspect, however, that even he would be hard-pressed to emulate the brass neck of former assistant Dublin city and county manager, George Redmond. Not content with being fingered as a rotten apple at the heart of the planning process in Dublin by Mr Gogarty, he waited until he was the centre of public attention to walk into the arms of the Criminal Assets Bureau at Dublin Airport laden down with cash.

To barely concealed mirth among the press corps, he then insisted he saw nothing wrong with the city's chief planner acting as a highly paid planning consultant to various developers - not that he asked for money, you understand; it merely arrived out of the blue in neat brown envelopes.

Now, to cap it all, he is attempting to persuade the tribunal that as a PAYE earner on a gross salary of £29,000, he cannot recall the circumstances in which £95,000 - four times his gross salary - was lodged to his bank accounts in 1989, the year he retired.

If anyone around the Flood tribunal deserves sympathy at the moment, it must be the poor lawyers Mr Redmond has hired.