Like Charles Haughey, Mahmoud Fustok, the Lebanese-born Saudi Arabian diplomat and brother-in-law of the Saudi Crown Prince, has had a long-term interest in breeding and racing thoroughbreds.
Mr Haughey, in his time as minister for agriculture, introduced measures to aid the bloodstock industry, including making stud fees free of tax. The subsequent prospering of the industry eventually caused the enormously wealthy Mr Fustok to begin doing business here, buying and selling horses. The paths of the two men were destined to cross.
During the week the Moriarty tribunal heard that Mr Fustok, in a communication sent from the United States, has said he gave Mr Haughey £50,000 in 1985 in payment for a horse. He could not remember the name of the horse, as he had so many. The money was given on Mr Fustok's behalf to Mr Haughey by the former TD and minister, Dr John O'Connell.
Mr Fustok is the eldest of nine children born to an oil-wealthy Saudi family prominent in horseracing in Egypt and Lebanon. When studying petroleum engineering at the University of Oklahoma in the early 1960s, Mr Fustok would spend his summer vacations at race tracks in New York and Chicago. When his father died in 1965 he moved back to Saudi Arabia.
The family's fortunes swelled as the price of oil increased during the 1970s, and Mr Fustok began planning a worldwide racing operation.
He set up a racing stable in France in 1975 and began buying top mares. Because the best stallions are considered to be in the US, he bought a 498-acre farm in Lexington, Kentucky, called Buckram Oak Farm. He bred horses in the US but sent his best to race in England and France. He preferred the spectacle of European racing and disliked the long journeys from Saudi Arabia to north America. Europe was more convenient. His stable in France is in Chantilly, near Paris.
In her memoirs, published in the Sunday Times recently, Terry Keane wrote of staying with Mr Haughey at "the magnificent chateau in Chantilly owned by Mahmoud Fustok, the fabulously rich Saudi businessman". She said she never met Mr Fustok.
It seems Mr Haughey first met Mr Fustok via Dr O'Connell. A son of Dr O'Connell's studied in the College of Surgeons and graduated with a student who was related to Mr Fustok. In 1979 Dr O`Connell, then a Labour Party TD and later a Fianna Fail TD and minister for health, met the Saudi millionaire. He began to meet Mr Fustok on a regular basis. The two would attend the Goffs annual bloodstock sales together, and Mr Fustok would normally spend £1 million.
In 1981, while they were at Goffs sales, Dr O'Connell introduced the Saudi millionaire to Ms Eimear Haughey, who invited the millionaire to her father's home in Kinsealy, Co Dublin. Mr Fustok accepted the invitation.
According to sources in the bloodstock industry, Dr O'Connell operated as Mr Fustok's agent or representative in this State. He would buy and sell horses for Mr Fustok, and oversee his affairs here.
In 1981 Dr O'Connell was also sponsoring applications for passports to the Department of Justice. He was associated with applications for Ibrahim and Adnan Moubarak, who are understood to be brothers of Mr Mohammad Moubarak, who trained as a horse trainer in Co Kildare and may be the trainer referred to by Dr O'Connell in evidence to the tribunal.
Dr O'Connell also sponsored an application for Mr Kamal Fustok, who is understood to be a brother of Mr Mahmoud Fustok and to live in Florida.
However, life has not been all plain sailing for the hugely wealthy Mr Fustok. Dr O'Connell told the tribunal that his Saudi friend lost £176 million when he and the Texan oil millionaires, Nelson, William and Lamar Hunt, tried to corner the world silver market in the late 1970s.
In 1988 the Hunt brothers, whose wealth was once estimated at $6 billion, were found guilty by a US federal court of attempting illegally to corner the world's silver market. They were ordered to pay $130 million to the Peruvian government's mineral marketing company, Minpeco SA, which alleged it had been ruined the by attempt in the late 1970s.
The court found that Mr Mahmoud Fustok and a company based in the Bahamas owned by two Arab sheikhs were involved in the conspiracy. The court heard that the price of silver rose from $9 an ounce to more than $50 between September 1979 and January 1980, after which the bottom fell out of the market and the price plunged back to $10.
The court was told the Hunts bought 59 million ounces of silver in less than a year, in the hope of making $4 billion. In the event they lost $1.5 billion.
Mr Fustok contributed to the perception of a growing world silver shortage by transporting tons of bullion in armoured trucks from New York warehouses to Kennedy Airport, where it was loaded on to Boeing 747s bound for Switzerland. Eventually the unprecedented amount of the group's silver buying became evident, and the price collapsed.
According to Dr O'Connell, it was as a result of his suggestion to Mr Haughey that Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia was invited on a state visit to the Republic. During the June 1988 visit the crown prince gave jewelled gold daggers to members of the Cabinet, including Mr Haughey. He gave Mrs Maureen Haughey a diamond necklace. During a subsequent Dail debate on the gifts, Mr Haughey said media reports that the necklace was worth £250,000 were "exaggerated".