The Kerry TD, Mr Denis Foley, discussed an offshore account held for his benefit with a former Guinness & Mahon executive less than 18 months ago.
Mr Foley and Mr Padraig Collery met in a hotel near Dublin Airport to discuss his financial holdings late in the summer of 1998.
Mr Collery told counsel for the tribunal, Mr John Coughlan SC, yesterday that Mr Foley referred to the offshore funds as "the accounts Mr Traynor was looking after". He said the Kerry TD received statements on the account as recently as the summer of last year which featured the name of Hamilton Ross, the Cayman Islands company which took over the Ansbacher deposits.
Earlier, the tribunal heard that Mr Foley's balance in offshore funds stood at £130,000 in April 1997. This was despite withdrawing £50,000 in cash two years previously.
Mr Collery confirmed he met Mr Foley in Jury's Hotel, Dublin, in September 1995 to give him the £50,000 in notes pre-packed in plastic containers. Mr Collery put the containers into a large brown envelope, which he handed to Mr Foley.
For several years Mr Foley held two offshore accounts, one of which was opened in the 1970s. The second was opened in December 1990 after some £24,000 which Mr Foley held jointly with his daughter in a Guinness & Mahon resident account was withdrawn and passed through a number of other accounts in Dublin before an equivalent sterling sum was deposited by Guinness & Mahon in the Cayman Islands.
The sterling sum was placed in an Ansbacher account numbered A/A49, which the tribunal has established was recorded as being Mr Foley's. The account opened in 1979 was coded A/A40. The Central Bank was never informed of either account.
According to Mr Collery, Mr Foley's two Ansbacher accounts were amalgamated in March or April 1997 in a "tidy-up" operation ordered by Mr John Furze. This occurred at a time when the McCracken tribunal was investigating the deposits.
Mr Collery said Mr Furze wished to simplify the accounts and transfer all deposits held in Dublin to the Cayman Islands. This process involved the amalgamation of Mr Foley's accounts. Some £33,677 was transferred to A/A40, creating a balance of £129,850.61 on April 30th, 1997.
Mr Collery said Mr Foley had asked to meet him at the hotel near Dublin Airport because he was "looking for information in relation to the closing of his account in Guinness & Mahon Ireland Ltd.
"He asked me if I could assist him in tracking where these funds went as he believed they went into an account controlled by the late Mr Traynor. I informed Mr Foley that I had no access to such account details and that I was unable to help him in this matter.
"He reminded me of the £50,000 Irish that I'd arranged for him in August 1995. I mentioned to him that I'd seen on the records of Mr Furze a reference to him in conjunction with A/A40. He appeared surprised at this.
"He was also of the opinion that any account that Mr Traynor was looking after for him was to be held for the benefit of his daughter."
In 1988 Mr Foley had asked that a resident account he held in Guinness & Mahon be converted to a joint account, with his daughter as the other beneficiary. Mr Collery said Mr Foley was anxious to ensure all accounts were held jointly with his daughter as he was about to undergo "a very serious heart operation".
Mr Collery said he "may have brought computer-generated records of A/A40 account records" with him to the meeting near Dublin Airport and believed he might have given the documents to Mr Foley.
"I trust he is in a position to confirm that I gave him such records," he told the tribunal in a statement.
Mr Collery said he had sent out statements on offshore accounts as recently as last year. Most were delivered by hand, but he had entrusted Mr Foley's to the postal system.
He said he had not given statements on the account since the summer of 1999 on the advice of the tribunal.
He agreed with Mr John Coughlan SC that it would have been "potentially a difficulty" for a politician to still be receiving statements from his offshore account last year.