As the most senior official civil servant transferred to the new Independent Radio and Television Commission, Mr Sean Connolly was "Mr IRTC" when the first licences were being awarded.
Along with the chairman, Mr Justice Henchy, Mr Connolly played a central role in getting commercial radio established from 1989 on. His evidence will hopefully shed more light on the circumstances in which Century Radio was awarded the first national franchise in that year.
Yesterday Mr Connolly's mantra was that the transmission charges due from Century to RTE were "no big deal". Far more important in determining whether a new station would succeed or not was the amount of revenue it could bring in.
His second principal line of argument was to state repeatedly that the commission did not have a key role in the negotiations on transmission charges. This was a matter for the successful licence applicant to sort out with RTE.
Mr Des O'Neill SC, for the tribunal, put the scale of the charges, and the reductions effected by Mr Burke, in true perspective yesterday. RTE first sought £1.14 million but after negotiations with the minister's officials reduced this demand to £692,000. Then the minister intervened in February 1989 and this figure was reduced to £614,000.
This may not seem like a big reduction, although it was more valuable 12 years ago. But, as Mr O'Neill showed, the total saving for Century amounted to more than £500,000 over the following seven years.
Then in March 1989 Mr Burke intervened again by issuing a directive to RTE to further reduce its figure. The total saving accruing to Century from the minister's interventions rose to over £820,000.
As for Mr Connolly's second point - that the Commission wasn't involved in negotiating the charge - this is correct only in the narrowest sense. True, the charges were initially negotiated by RTE and Mr Burke's officials; this was before the licence was awarded to Century.
But at all times the IRTC adopted the view that RTE's charges were excessive, even when these charges had been significantly reduced in the negotiation process.
Even when the minister gave his approval to the £614,000 figure - "not unreasonable in Irish circumstances" - the IRTC continued to press for a reduction, although it had no technical advice available nor had it carried out any studies of its own.
With Century saying it couldn't, and wouldn't, pay more than £375,000, there was an obvious gap between its offer and RTE's stance. We learned yesterday that Mr Connolly knew about the agreement between the Department and RTE on a figure of £692,000 just before the IRTC interviewed the franchise applicants in January 1989.
However, Century wasn't questioned on this; Mr Connolly said it was because the IRTC didn't want to "tie their hands" in future negotiations with RTE.
So why didn't Mr Connolly and Mr Henchy bring up the matter in private when they talked to Century on the day after the oral presentations?
Mr Connolly conceded that the minister's first intervention, reducing the charge to £614,000, was substantial. This was "close to the final figure" and he didn't think any further reduction would be available or appropriate.
When Century wrote in February 1989 asking for a ministerial directive to reduce the charges further, the IRTC sent on the letter to Mr Burke. The commission members were not consulted, and no formal decision was taken, but when Mr Burke implemented the directive in the following month, he said it "followed discussions" with the IRTC.
Mr Connolly's evidence continues today.