Mr James Gogarty told the tribunal he made telephone calls in response to the calls of Mr Michael Bailey, who was hounding him to keep quiet about the payment to Mr Ray Burke and later was threatening him over media reports.
Mr John Gallagher SC, for the tribunal, said Mr Gogarty's evidence was that after a meeting with Mr Michael Bailey and Mr Tom Bailey in the Skylon Hotel in 1990, he had no further contact until August 1996.
Mr Bailey disagreed with Mr Gogarty's evidence that there were no further contacts and said Mr Gogarty had phoned him regularly for the intervening six years looking for the balance of a finder's fee.
Mr Gogarty replied: "The contact I swore in evidence and in my affidavit was face-to-face contact with him - the last time was in August/September 1990 when he gave me a cheque (for £50,000) and impressed upon me that I should go away and enjoy it and forget all about the Burke and Redmond affair and when I realised the extent of the cheque, I eventually gave the cheque to the tribunal. I have never sought or received a penny from the Baileys."
Asked if he accepted that he was in frequent and regular contact with Mr Michael Bailey between February 23rd, 1993 and July 22nd, 1996, Mr Gogarty said he would not accept that it was frequent or regular. The calls were in response to Mr Bailey's calls to him. "There's no evidence there of mobile calls from him [Mr Bailey] to me during that period." When asked about the calls, he said: "All calls in those periods were initiated by Bailey and I responded, and the content repeatedly during that period was his efforts to get me to meet Senior [Mr Joseph Murphy] and the Murphys to try and settle my legal disputes with the Murphys out of court."
He said at that time, in early 1993, the circuit court proceedings taken by him against the Murphys were in the provisional list. A date was then fixed for the hearing in March 1994.
"Prior to that, all his calls were to induce me on two grounds to meet Senior and the Murphy representatives to settle my case out of court, and his motivation was to ensure that I wouldn't be in a position then to give evidence to the circuit court of bribery, corruption and fraud," said Mr Gogarty. "From February 23rd, 1993 to May 1994, he [Bailey] was hounding me to meet Senior and see things settled so that I wouldn't be raising the matters of Burke and Redmond in open court," he said.
Asked why he rang Mr Bailey in May 1996, Mr Gogarty said he was responding to an earlier call from him as at that time the situation changed dramatically.
"Now the Burke and Redmond affair was out in the open in the media and it was the first time I was getting relief that I was being listened to and by responsible journalists in the media. I was out in the open now and Bailey of course panicked, as far as I'm concerned, and was trying to insist something be done to get them off the hook." Mr Gogarty said it was in the context of trying to "shut me up".
"It was getting hot then, you see because I was a bit aggressive myself but he [Bailey] was definitely panicked now and he was threatening me now and he was insisting I met the Murphys and get this out of the media and he told me he'd arrange a meeting with the Murphys for me and if I didn't turn up and I failed to turn up it was at my peril."