More tea, biscuits and this time a £50,000 cheque

Send lawyers, guns and money/The shit has hit the fan run the opening lines from an old Warren Zevon song. And for a while in Dublin Castle yesterday we had all three.

There were, of course, lawyers aplenty, about 40 seated in rows before the judge. Mr James Gogarty brought the money - metaphorically and literally - in the form of a £50,000 payment he was given by a developer, Mr Michael Bailey.

The cheque, made out to Mr Jim Gogarty and dated September 13th, 1990, was given to Mr Gogarty to buy his silence on payments to Ray Burke, the witness claimed.

Just as with Ray Burke, there were tea and biscuits. He described meeting Mr Bailey in the Skylon Hotel in August or September 1990. Mr Bailey told him to forget about Ray Burke and "the whole thing". There was another envelope, this time tucked by Mr Bailey into Mr Gogarty's breast pocket.

The chairman, Mr Justice Flood, asked for a look at the cheque. Mr Bailey, sitting impassively in the hall throughout the day's proceedings, showed no signs of wanting his money back.

The tribunal toilets were clogged up for most of last week, until the plumbers came to fix them. But yesterday the men's toilet was blocked again for a different reason, as a scrum of journalists of both persuasions tried to gain entry.

The reason: a revolver left behind by an unfortunate detective garda whose mind was clearly on other things. A solicitor discovered the offending weapon and alerted a uniformed garda. He removed the bullets and used his hat to hide it from view.

The two plainclothes detectives who came to take back the revolver told reporters it was "a toy". But the looks on their faces told a different story. Like the tribunal, this was for real.