McGowan apologises for early evidence on Burke sums

The builder Mr Joe McGowan has apologised for failing to identify the correct source of large payments he and Mr Tom Brennan made to Mr Ray Burke when they first gave evidence to the tribunal last year.

On that occasion, Mr Brennan and Mr McGowan said the money received by Mr Burke came from lavish fundraising events held at horse racing meetings in Britain and Ireland. However, the tribunal subsequently discovered that the two men used a network of offshore companies to make payments totalling £125,000 to Mr Burke.

Yesterday, Mr McGowan explained that he had got off to a "shaky start" and "probably didn't do enough research 12 months ago". Thanks to the tribunal, his mind had been "jogged" about his offshore companies, and he then instructed his solicitors to "get every document out".

The tribunal first wrote to Brennan and McGowan seeking information about payments to Mr Burke and Mr George Redmond in December 1999. Asked what he had done in response to this request for information, Mr McGowan said: "Not an awful lot, I admit."

"I apologise to the chairman for not making extensive searches in the early stages, which should have been done. It was an error."

Did you make any inquiries, asked Ms Patricia Dillon SC, for the tribunal. "None whatsoever," Mr McGowan replied.

Ms Dillon asked if Mr McGowan had an "absolute blank" regarding the £60,000 paid by Canio, a company he part-owned, to Mr Burke in 1984. "Totally," the witness replied. "If you asked me to go around Punchestown, Badminton or Burleigh, I could name every one of the 32 fences." However, the human mind was another matter.

Would the payment of £60,000 to Mr Burke not stand out as a singular event, Ms Dillon asked. Mr McGowan said he didn't realise the source of the payment was Canio.

Mr Justice Flood said there were two separate sources of money paid to Mr Burke. One was the dinner party fund raisers, the other was the sums channelled from abroad.

Mr McGowan said he was now stating that the source of the money was Canio. This was independent of the other fundraising for "Fianna Fail/Ray Burke". There was "no doubt" that this was in addition to the £60,000 paid to Mr Burke.

Tribunal lawyers have described as "utterly extraordinary and unbelievable" the fact that Brennan and McGowan forgot to disclose offshore payments of £125,000 to Mr Burke until the tribunal found out about them through its own investigations.

Ms Dillon said the two builders "well recollected" this but failed to mention it when they gave evidence in Dublin Castle last year. She said Mr McGowan had made a "deliberate attempt to conceal the true nature of the situation" regarding payments to Mr Burke.

Ms Dillon re-read sections of Mr McGowan's evidence from April last year, in which he denied having accounts "outside the jurisdiction", said he had "no idea" if money was contributed to Mr Burke outside fundraising events at Ascot and Cheltenham, and expressed ignorance about whether money was paid to Mr Burke in Jersey.

Yesterday, Mr McGowan acknowledged that his answer to each of these questions was "in error".

He also erred when he said that he hadn't paid any money to Mr Burke offshore, the witness agreed. And his failure to disclose the existence of the Jersey companies until this year was also "an error".

Earlier, Mr Tom Brennan completed his evidence, although he is certain to be recalled in the autumn to answer questions about his accounts in Liechtenstein and the Isle of Man.

Mr Brennan said he was of the opinion that auctioneer Mr John Finnegan knew "everything" about a loan application by Canio, a company owned by Brennan and McGowan and Mr Finnegan, related to lands at Sandyford. Mr Finnegan's lawyers have claimed their client was "kept in the dark" about the loan, which was used to make a payment to Mr Burke.