IN 1992 Mr John Bruton gave the beef tribunal an impression that he and his parliamentary colleagues had very little involvement in corporate fundraising for Fine Gael.
But last week he told the Dunnes payments tribunal that the year before he gave that evidence to the beef tribunal he had in fact been intensively involved in seeking business contributions to Fine Gael.
He subsequently rejected accusations that he had therefore misled the beef tribunal in 1992. When giving evidence there, he said, he had been referring not to 1991 but to an earlier period with which the beef tribunal was concerned.
From some of the questions put to Mr Bruton and his answers to them, it is not clear whether this was the case.
Question 15 (see panel) appears quite general, and the answer suggesting a procedure which has "always been the case" and "a general rule" does not appear to refer specifically to the period before Mr Bruton became leader.
Mr Bruton has said, however, that his answer here refers to the procedure during election campaigns only.
Although the question is clearly about financial contributions generally, and not only during elections, Mr Bruton says that his reference to "donations received during an election campaign" near the end of the answer shows that he was referring to election donations throughout his answer.
Mr Bruton has also pointed to his answer to question 19 at the beef tribunal, during which he said: "I am not aware of any such seeking of funds during the period in which the tribunal is, with which the tribunal is concerned, because I was not a trustee of the party at that time."
(The question in this case clearly asks for information on fundraising "apart altogether from election periods".)
It has now emerged, however, that if he was referring to the period before he was leader he has more explaining to do. For during this period - in 1987 and 1988 - Mr Alan Dukes, then Fine Gael leader, was involved in a major drive to raise funds for the party. Details reported yesterday by the Sunday Independent indicate that Mr Dukes made Mr Bruton aware of at least some of his fundraising efforts, and tried to involve him in them.
Mr Dukes told the Dunnes payments tribunal last week that he had written several hundred letters to business people as part of a fundraising campaign. He met a small number of these people in their offices, for lunch or for dinner.
The Sunday Independent yesterday reported the existence of a list of 800 top business people, dated November 23rd, 1987, and headed "Fine Gael Contact List". Beside the names of a number of the business people are written the names of Fine Gael frontbench members assigned to deal with them.
Notes in the margin indicate amounts promised, refusals or other information. Mr Bruton's name appears beside 26 of the 800 names.
Fine Gael has not denied the authenticity of this list but has said that Mr Bruton did not, to his recollection, actually meet any of those listed.
The fact that Mr Bruton was notified of at least two target donors is hard to square with his answer to question 19 that he was "not aware of any such seeking of funds during the period . . . with which the tribunal is concerned".
A spokesman for Mr Bruton said yesterday that he did not, to his recollection, contact any of these people and was not a participant in this fundraising campaign. It is clear that even if this is the case, Mr Bruton's statement to the beef tribunal that he was not aware of such fundraising needs explanation.
For he was made aware of it by Mr Dukes, according to yesterday's report. On January 4th, 1988, Mr Dukes sent Mr Bruton a copy of a letter from the chairman of the major fruit importers FII, Mr Neil McCann. Mr McCann's letter stated inter alia: "You can take it that we will provide financial support for the party, as we have done in the past. We very much approve of your enlightened approach in opposition and would like to have a session with John Bruton and will contact you some time in January.
The next day, January 5th, Mr Dukes received a letter from Mr Kevin J. Kelly, then managing partner of Coopers and Lybrand, chartered accountants. This thanked Mr Dukes for an earlier letter, and said that he (Mr Kelly) would be delighted to meet Mr Bruton.
This letter was also passed on to Mr Bruton with a note from Mr Dukes asking him to "pursue the matter with Mr Kelly".
It does not specify what "the matter" to be pursued is, but it appears very likely to relate to a request for a donation to Fine Gael, as did the FII correspondence.
The correspondence suggests that when asked for money, donors were also offered an audience with particular frontbenchers. Mr Bruton for example, then Fine Gael deputy leader and spokesman on industry and commerce, was offered to the top figures in Coopers and Lybrand and FII for a policy discussion.
Yet at the Dunnes payments tribunal Mr Dukes rejected a suggestion that a person who had given a significant contribution to his party might have a greater opportunity to discuss policy with senior Fine Gael members than would other people.
Mr Dukes denied this. "He would have had the same qualifications to discuss these policy issues as any other voter," he said.
Having spent much of Saturday night attempting to explain to the Sunday newspapers how the latest information can be reconciled with Mr Bruton's evidence to the beef tribunal, Fine Gael attempted to change the subject. Just after midnight, a statement arrived in newspaper offices from Fine Gael in the name of the Minister for Agriculture, Mr Yates, criticising Mr Haughey's attitude to the tribunal.
This suggested the Fianna Fail leader, Mr Bertie Ahern, was somehow to blame because Mr Haughey had not yet given evidence to the tribunal.