Moriarty tribunal: Former supermarket magnate Ben Dunne has again denied that he sought to hide his true motive for giving £1.9 million to Charles Haughey.
"The money was paid for one purpose only and that was to pay a debt that Mr Haughey had," Mr Dunne said.
He rejected the suggestion by John Coughlan SC, for the tribunal, that his true motive had to do with tax matters associated with the Dunne family trust.
Mr Coughlan put it to Mr Dunne that he had not told the 1997 McCracken tribunal about meetings in 1987 with the then chairman of the Revenue Commissioners, Séamus Páircéir, because he wanted to cloud and obscure the true motives for the payment. "The true purpose was to do with the tax position of the trust," Mr Coughlan said.
"That's not correct," Mr Dunne said. "The true position is that I had forgotten." Mr Coughlan said that, in fairness, Mr Dunne had not been the only one not to bring to the attention of the McCracken tribunal the meeting with Mr Páircéir, which had been set up with the assistance of Mr Haughey.
Mr Coughlan said Mr Dunne's stated reason for making the payments was that he admired Mr Haughey and wanted to help him with a financial difficulty. However, Mr Dunne had ended up paying twice the original amount that had been agreed.
Mr Coughlan asked how it had come about that Mr Dunne paid twice the amount.
Mr Dunne said: "I have no explanation for how that happened. It just happened. No note of how much had been paid was being kept."
Mr Coughlan said it was another indication that the money was being paid for a purpose other than admiration for Mr Haughey. Mr Dunne did not agree. He said that during his fight with his siblings in 1993 and 1994 he felt that former Dunnes Stores accountant Michael Irwin might be available to his side in the dispute.
"I suppose so, because he lost his job, but I don't think he really wanted to get involved," Mr Dunne said. "I could have said to [ solicitor] Noel Smyth that if I wanted I could get Michael Irwin because he was after being fired or he knew he was on the way out when I was on the way out."
In 1993 when he was removed from the board of Dunnes Stores, Mr Dunne telephoned a Dunnes Stores trustee, Bernard Uniacke, and threatened to disclose a number of matters to the authorities, including the "dissipation" of Dunnes Stores funds. He told Mr Uniacke he had an affidavit from an internal Dunnes Stores accountant in relation to the matter.
On Wednesday Mr Dunne told Mr Coughlan that while there was dissipation of funds there was no truth in the assertion concerning the affidavit.
Yesterday he said he could have said to Mr Smyth that he could get an affidavit, meaning one from Mr Irwin.
During the dispute within the family Mr Dunne did not mention a £282,000 sterling payment to Mr Haughey, known as the triple plan payment.
Mr Dunne said there was no reason in his mind for not having put the triple plan payment into the list of controversial payments he listed while preparing for his clash with his siblings.
Mr Dunne said Mr Irwin was aware of the dissipation of funds within the group. He agreed the accountant was involved in another payment made to Mr Haughey, the Carlisle payment, which totalled £180,000.
Mr Dunne completed his evidence and was not questioned by his own legal representative or those present for the Dunne family trust, Margaret Heffernan, or the Revenue.
