Mr George Redmond received a £2,000 cheque from JMSE a short time after he prepared a report for the company on the status of its lands in north Co Dublin in 1987, the tribunal heard.
Mr Redmond said he prepared the report for the company when he was assistant Dublin city and county manager, but did not regard receiving £2,000 from the company as inappropriate.
He said that after giving the report to Mr James Gogarty he met him again with Mr Liam Conroy, chief executive of JMSE, for lunch at the Westbury Hotel in Dublin.
He said the conversation with the men consisted of "small talk", but Mr Conroy suggested he would "send something" to Mr Redmond for the trouble involved in compiling the report.
Mr Justice Flood and Mr Patrick Hanratty SC, for the tribunal, questioned Mr Redmond on why he had not written back to either Mr Gogarty or JMSE to express thanks for the £2,000 cheque.
Mr Redmond said it might have been a lack of courtesy on his part. He rejected suggestions that receiving the money put him under a compliment.
"To what extent had I done something inappropriate? I did nothing at all," he said.
Mr Hanratty said: "That was a very substantial sum of money at that time. This would have been considerably in excess of your monthly salary cheque at the time."
He added: "Did it occur to you that there may be any conflict in you accepting a sum of money of that magnitude from a person representing a company to whom you had just provided a written report?"
"I couldn't see any conflict," Mr Redmond replied.
"Do you see any now?" asked Mr Hanratty.
"No, having regard to the duties that I had at the time I couldn't see any conflict then. It was unsolicited. It came and that was it," Mr Redmond said.
Mr Hanratty asked him if he thought there was anything unusual about the payment. "Well, I would say, why in heaven's name do they [JMSE] pay for the information I gave them, which was all bad news, is all I would say," Mr Redmond said.
Mr Redmond said it was after a meeting in his office during the summer of 1987 with Mr Gogarty, representing JMSE, that he decided to draw up a report on the lands for the company.
He said Mr Gogarty wanted to "clarify" certain issues, including the drainage status of the lands and whether there were any road proposals likely to have a detrimental impact on the lands.
When asked by Mr Hanratty if he could say what form of assistance Mr Gogarty had been seeking from him, Mr Redmond replied: "He was just being brought up to date on the overall position." Mr Redmond added: "He was very direct, very intelligent and very keen on what I was telling him."
Mr Redmond agreed with Mr Hanratty that Mr Gogarty could have received the information on the land from other sources, including independent planning consultants.
Mr Hanratty asked Mr Redmond why Mr Gogarty felt it necessary to seek the information from him. Mr Redmond said Mr Batt O'Shea, of O'Shea Shanahan, the building firm, had introduced Mr Gogarty to him and that was probably the main reason.
In order to prepare the report, Mr Redmond said, he was supplied with maps of the area. "You were going to a fair amount of trouble for him, for the company," said Mr Hanratty.
Mr Redmond said he was not going to any trouble for JMSE: he was doing it for Dublin County Council. "I was the council, I had the powers," he said.
Mr Redmond said he was "ploughing his own furrow" in relation to the meeting. "They were lands to be remembered," because Dublin City Council might be able to use the information gained about the lands later, he said.
Mr Redmond said he believed he presented Mr Gogarty with a copy of his report and filed his own copy among personal files. He said he was not aware of anyone from Dublin County Council inspecting the report subsequently.