Mr George Redmond has said he received payments from developers as he was retiring from the job of assistant Dublin city and county manager in the 1980s.
The admission is contained in an additional statement he has furnished to the tribunal within the last three weeks, it was revealed at yesterday's hearing in Dublin Castle.
The new statement was submitted after Mr Redmond's legal team withdrew from the tribunal at the end of January. It was circulated to parties at the tribunal in the past few days, and followed Mr Redmond's dramatic arrest on returning from the Isle of Man with £300,000 in cash and bank drafts on February 19th.
Mr Redmond was not present in Dublin Castle yesterday when his fresh revelations were unveiled during Mr James Gogarty's evidence.
His solicitor, Mr Anthony Harris, was not there to hear the witness deny he had given Mr Redmond £25,000 at a meeting in the Clontarf Castle, though Mr Harris did arrive later. "Jesus, where did I get all this money?" was the characteristic response of Mr Gogarty to this allegation. "I reject that completely," he continued.
We thus have the situation where Mr Redmond and Mr Gogarty are denying each other's allegations, although both claims share a number of similarities.
Mr Redmond originally denied getting money from Joseph Murphy Structural Engineering but now accepts that he got £25,000 from Mr Gogarty. Some exchange of money occurred in Clontarf Castle in 1988, both men agree, but there are differences on who was present and for what purpose the meeting was convened.
Yesterday Mr Gogarty repeated his allegation that Mr Redmond was given £15,000 at a meeting in Clontarf Castle in May 1988. This meeting was attended by the developer Mr Michael Bailey, Mr Joseph Murphy jnr, another JMSE executive, Mr Frank Reynolds, and Mr Gogarty, the witness claimed.
Mr Gogarty said this payment was intended as compensation for the fact that Mr Redmond would not be taken on as a consultant on his retirement from the county council.
"There was some general chat took place between them and Junior gave him an envelope and he thanked him for it and said that it was a pity that he wasn't going to come into the company," he said.
"Junior handed it (the envelope) to Redmond," he repeated later. Mr Gogarty's claim is that Mr Redmond was looking for £25,000 but Mr Murphy had a chat with him and "got it down" to £15,000.
Mr Garrett Cooney SC, for JMSE, said this was a "complete fabrication". Mr Murphy had never met Mr Redmond; the first time he had laid eyes on him was when the tribunal started in January.
Mr Cooney added that, contrary to Mr Gogarty's assertions, Mr Joseph Murphy snr, who lives in Guernsey, didn't even know of the existence of Mr Redmond.
Mr Redmond's original statement, furnished to the tribunal in January, says the meeting as described by Mr Gogarty never took place.
According to Mr Redmond's new statement, he and Mr Gogarty had a number of meetings about lands owned by JMSE in north Co Dublin. They discussed the future of the lands and their possible development.
One question which arose was the absence or existence of public utilities on the lands and how this would affect their value.
In this new statement, Mr Redmond acknowledges that he introduced Mr Bailey to Mr Gogarty as a potential buyer for the lands. He "became aware" in early 1988 that the lands at Forest Roads in Swords were for sale.
Mr Redmond says he introduced Mr Gogarty to Mr Bailey in Clontarf Castle and then left.
"Sure it was the other way around," was Mr Gogarty's response to this. "In 1988, Mr Bailey set up a meeting with me and Redmond."
Mr Redmond has also acknowledged receiving a second payment from Mr Liam Conroy, who was chief executive of JMSE at the time. However, Mr Conroy was ousted shortly afterwards in a boardroom coup organised by Mr Gogarty.
Mr Gogarty has said that Mr Redmond had developed a "mechanism" for dealing with planning problems with Mr Conroy. But after Mr Conroy was ousted, others in JMSE came to deal with Mr Redmond.
Mr Cooney's last day of cross-examination ended as it started, with passionate argument and no absence of rancour.
Counsel said the witness had refused to sign the accounts of JMSE "out of bloody-mindedness and as part of the guerrilla warfare" he was conducting against his employers at that time.
Mr Gogarty grew angry as he pointed out that two other directors had refused to sign the accounts, which he considered fraudulent.
During his speech Mr Gogarty banged his fist down on the witness box. He was reminded by Mr Justice Flood that "you may not shout in this tribunal. You may not shout at counsel. You answer questions and that is it."
Finally, Mr Cooney brought up the claim by the witness that Mr Murphy snr had asked of him "Any chance of getting the £40,000 back?" during Mr Murphy's wife's funeral.
"Of all the malicious lies you have told about the Murphy family in the last 26 days, this is the cruellest and the most stupid," were Mr Cooney's final words.
"I don't accept that at all," replied Mr Gogarty.