John Byrne is a property developer from Co Kerry who left his family's small farm to go to London when he was young and is now thought to be one of the richest property developers in the Republic.
Early activities in England are understood to have included clearing sites bombed in the blitz. He opened a nightclub in London, the Galtimore, which is still in operation. It is said he returned to Dublin followed a request from the then Taoiseach, the late Sean Lemass.
Lemass wanted new office blocks built to house the expanded public service which was being created as the Irish economy began to grow. Mr Byrne did as requested. Included in his Dublin portfolio is the well known O'Connell Bridge House, which was built on the site of a building which was demolised called the Carlisle Building. It was leased to the State in 1965 for 35 years.
Mr Byrne formed a company, Carlisle Trust Ltd, in 1958 and it remains one of his main vehicles. In 1972, shares in the company were transferred to Guinness Mahon Cayman Trust, where a trust was established. Secretarial services for Mr Byrne's companies were handled by Management Investment Services, a company established by Mr Sam Field Corbett, an associate of Mr Traynor's and himself an Ansbacher account holder. A Cayman company remains the ultimate parent company of Mr Byrne's Irish companies.
Des Traynor was a trusted adviser to Mr Byrne up to his, Traynor's, death in 1994. Mr Byrne was also, since the 1960s, a close friend of Lemass's son-in-law, Charles Haughey. According to the social diarist, Terry Keane, she and Haughey stayed in Byrne's apartment in London on their first date together in the early 1970s.
Mr Byrne gave evidence to the Moriarty Tribunal. He said he never gave a penny to Mr Haughey, despite being his friend for more than 40 years.