Former Fianna Fáil minister Mr Padraig Flynn asked Mr Tom Gilmartin to lie to the tribunal by pretending that the politician had returned a £50,000 donation from him, Mr Gilmartin told the tribunal yesterday, writes Paul Cullen.
Mr Gilmartin said the then EU Commissioner rang him "out of the blue" in 1998 to say it would cost Mr Flynn the best part of a million pounds "if I didn't say the right thing".
At the time, Mr Flynn was hoping to spend a second term as Ireland's EU commissioner in Brussels.
Mr Flynn told him it would damage his livelihood and be disastrous for him and his family if this happened, Mr Gilmartin said.
"First of all he asked me to say that he returned the money and I said: 'No, I won't say that' and he then asked me to say that it was for his own political cause."
The call came "out of the blue" and Mr Flynn was "highly distressed".
It appeared that former minister Mr Ray MacSharry had obtained the number for Mr Flynn.
In total, Mr Flynn rang Mr Gilmartin at his home in Luton on seven occasions around this time, according to Mr Gilmartin. He said Mr Flynn offered to travel to Luton to meet him, but Mr Gilmartin said he told him this wouldn't be wise because the tribunal had also come over to interview him.
He said Mr Flynn also faxed him the responses he had made to questions posed by a Sunday newspaper, in which he appeared to deny receiving the £50,000 from the developer.
Mr Gilmartin said he "didn't give a damn" and didn't want to get involved with the tribunal. "When I left Dublin, I didn't want to see the sky over it again."
However, he changed his mind after Mr Flynn's appearance on the Late Late Show in January 1999.
He said he also pointed out to Mr Flynn that the cheque was in existence.
He continued: "When I was in Dublin, when I was having trouble, you turned your back on me, you done nothing for me, absolutely nothing."
But Mr Gilmartin said he told the politician that he didn't consider him "the worst of them". "There's a lot cuter boys around than you," he told him.
Asked what he meant by "cute boys", Mr Gilmartin told the tribunal: "Boys that cover their tracks. You know, that suffer from amnesia and things like that."
He said he felt sorry for Mr Flynn's "predicament". "If there was anything I could do to alter it (I would) but I said there's not. I'm not going to lie to anybody."
In the last fortnight, Mr Flynn has supplied the tribunal with notes he says he took by hand at the time of the calls.
These quote Mr Gilmartin as saying that Mr Flynn was "the only one I could talk to" and apologising "for the trouble I'm giving you".
However, Mr Gilmartin said the notes appeared to be records of earlier meetings he had with Mr Flynn rather than the phone conversation in 1998.
The tribunal will hear further evidence on this matter today, when Mr Gilmartin's direct evidence is due to finish.