Builders are accused of withholding information

The two builders Mr Tom Brennan and Mr Joe McGowan "deliberately and wilfully" withheld information about their offshore payments to Mr Ray Burke, the tribunal was told.

Ms Patricia Dillon SC, for the tribunal, said they did this to "hinder and obstruct" the tribunal. "You made a deliberate attempt to build Chinese walls to hide the fact that your offshore companies made payments to Mr Burke's offshore company," she said. This information was withheld until March this year, "when you realised that there was nothing further you could do to conceal it".

Mr McGowan denied this, saying: "I had no recollection of these payments at the time." Once they realised, Mr Brennan and Mr McGowan made "everything" available to the tribunal.

Ms Dillon said the two led their "unfortunate" solicitor, Mr John Walsh, on a "wild goose chase". She said Mr McGowan had elected not to tell Mr Walsh about a Jersey company, Canio Ltd, which made payments to Mr Burke. Mr Walsh met his clients last February after the tribunal wrote seeking information about the £50,000 and £60,000 sterling payments to Mr Burke.

Mr McGowan said he didn't set out "not to inform" Mr Walsh about Canio. He recollected this information later. Mr Brennan suggested they check with their legal advisers in Jersey, Bedell Cristin.

But Ms Dillon said the sequence of events showed Mr Brennan and Mr McGowan did not tell their solicitor about Bedell Cristin until after the tribunal had learned of its existence and written to Mr Walsh.

Ms Dillon explained how the tribunal uncovered the payments. After the politician's evidence last year, the tribunal traced one payment to Bedell Cristin. It found Mr Burke had a Jersey company, Caviar Ltd, and this was linked to Canio, owned by the two builders.

In February, the tribunal wrote to Mr Walsh seeking information about the two payments. The builders met their solicitor and, in the words of Ms Dillon, "sat silent" while Mr Walsh carried out "pointless" searches of company registers.

In the meantime, Mr Burke "corrected" his earlier evidence and the tribunal learned of the Jersey link. It contacted Bedell Cristin and obtained crucial information about the payments. It wrote again to Mr Walsh, seeking the file on Canio. It was only then, after the tribunal uncovered the link, that Mr Brennan and Mr McGowan made information available that could help the tribunal, she said.