Hotelier claims he was `badgered at best' by counsel for the tribunal

A hotel owner, Mr David Doyle, said yesterday he felt he was "badgered at best" by counsel for the tribunal on Tuesday.

Mr Doyle was reacting to questioning yesterday from counsel for the tribunal, Mr Jerry Healy, on the whereabouts of £27,000 in cheques drawn by Mr Doyle from his Bank of Ireland accounts in the 1980s which he gave to the former Guinness & Mahon chief executive, Mr Des Traynor.

The financial director of Guinness & Mahon bank, Ms Sandra Kells, said an examination of the three accounts in Mr Doyle's name in Guinness & Mahon, Dublin, revealed no lodgement of that amount. Mr Doyle testified on Tuesday that he believed Mr Traynor lodged the money to a numbered account in Guinness & Mahon.

Mr Doyle agreed with counsel for Guinness & Mahon, Mr Paul Gallagher, SC, that Mr Traynor might have been acting for Guinness & Mahon in London or the Caymen Islands when he entrusted the £27,000 in Bank of Ireland cheques to him. Therefore, the cheques could have been lodged to Guinness & Mahon, Caymen, of which Mr Traynor was a director at the time.

Mr Doyle also agreed with Mr Gallagher that he testified on Tuesday that he once believed he had a dollar account. As the evidence had shown he had no dollar account in Guinness & Mahon, Dublin, the account was perhaps in Guinness & Mahon, Cayman.

Mr Doyle agreed with his counsel, Mr Michael Collins SC, that it was possible he "may simply not have noticed the fact that the £27,000 in question didn't appear as a credit" on statements from Guinness & Mahon in Dublin.