Mr George Redmond could be facing hundreds of thousands of pounds in costs if Mr Justice Flood makes good his warning on legal fees arising from Mr Redmond's continuing failure to cooperate with the tribunal.
Not only could Mr Redmond have his own legal costs withheld, but he could also be billed with the fees of the tribunal for the period he is under examination. And with the average cost of the tribunal running at more than £6,000 a day - and far more on sitting days - the 75-year-old former assistant Dublin city and county manager is facing a massive potential penalty.
For most of this tribunal Mr Justice Flood has been an unobtrusive arbiter of proceedings, even in the face of considerable provocation. So his warning to the witness yesterday was all the more resonant because it was unique in the history of the tribunal so far.
As well as the threat on legal costs, Mr Redmond could be referred to the DPP on suspicion of obstructing the work of the tribunal. This offence, as the chairman reminded him, carried fines of up to £10,000 and/or two years in prison. Mr Redmond would be condemned to a fate similar to that facing Mr Haughey, a man of similar age but far greater means.
The warning was issued following further evasive answering by the witness regarding his business dealings with Mr Jim Kennedy, an arcade-owner to whom he lent money in the 1980s. Mr Justice Flood accused him of having "selective amnesia" and of portraying himself as a gullible character.
The main prompt for his limited memory, though, is a 1988 diary, the only record of a 40-year career in Dublin Corporation to survive to this day. Found by the Criminal Assets Bureau when Mr Redmond's house was being searched last year, it could yet prove his undoing.
When the contents of the diary, which lists appointments with nine separate politicians, were put to him, Mr Redmond gave up the pretence of last week that he "rarely" met elected representatives. The diary also lists 11 contacts with one developer, and 10 with another, and yesterday we found that these two men were among those newly named by the witness as having given him money.
Mr Redmond now says he got £20,000 in cash from the first developer in 1988 and 1989 and the same amount from the other, also in cash, in the vestibule of Dublin County Council offices around the same time. These sums are twice the figures he suggested to the tribunal last week.
He also mentioned another landowner who sent him cheques for £5,000 each year over a three-year period, but said he didn't cash these.
As for the politicians, his amnesia seemed to return when it came to telling the tribunal what they were doing in his office. There was talk of golf and tennis in a few instances, but the witness was generally unable to tie any of the contacts to discussions about specific land issues, even though a number of the diary entries listed planning file numbers.
The politicians included someone who was a TD but not a county councillor and who is still active in local politics, and a retired politician. Former Fianna Fail county councillors Mr Sean Walsh and Mr Pat Dunne, both deceased, were instantly recognisable as people Mr Redmond had contact with.
There were some signs that Mr Redmond's memory had improved somewhat in later questioning about the £5,000 he received from a Lucan garage-owner, Mr Brendan Fassnidge. But, again, most of this improved recollection could be traced back to documentary evidence provided to him by the tribunal. The valuer's file on a strip of land Mr Fassnidge wished to acquire to provide access to a filling station from the bypass contains references to, and handwritten notes by, Mr Redmond that the witness could hardly deny. So his story simply adjusted to suit these new circumstances.
The file shows that Mr Redmond instructed his officials to look for £120,000 for the strip of land. Mr Fassnidge met an official together with a county councillor and offered a mere £5,000. The county councillor said the council's price was "totally unrealistic" and vowed to take up the matter directly with Mr Redmond. Employing the time-worn reasons put forward by politicians, he said that Mr Fassnidge was a local man and the area needed the filling station jobs. So, £120,000 or £5,000? Well, ultimately, Mr Fassnidge paid the council £10,000 for the land. Another £5,000 slipped through Mr Redmond's letter box shortly after.
Yesterday, the witness said the £120,000 price he set was an "outlandish, top-of-my-head reaction . . . I never expected anyone to get it." The actual selling price was decided by the officials and approved by the valuer.
But he was forced to agree with Mr Des O'Neill SC, for the tribunal, that this was indeed an "extraordinary transaction"; after all, Mr Fassnidge didn't even own the filling station. The most he had at the time was an option to buy the site, which he would then sell on with planning permission to one of the oil companies. Last week, Mr Redmond referred to the scarcity of petrol stations in the area but yesterday we learned from official documents that there were two stations within 600 metres of the site.
His evidence continues today.