Working in Century Radio when it was in financial difficulties was "a nightmare", Mr Oliver Barry has told the Flood tribunal.
He was explaining where a figure of £40,000 which he claimed he was owed had come from. Although there were no receipts to show for the money, he said, he had earned it during 25 weeks' work in Century Radio at £1,600 a week.
"For six months in 1990 it must have been about the biggest nightmare of my life. I had to go in to Century Radio into a building in a business I was not familiar with. I had to negotiate for a large number of people to leave the company," he said.
He was chief executive and chief of sales and had to attempt to manage the financial crisis Century was facing. "In all fairness to Jim Stafford, while we have had our differences, I think he said in his evidence, which I can appreciate, that only for me the company would have gone under. The company was in dire circumstances," he said.
Mr Barry denied he had made the figure up and said the previous chief executive had earned a similar figure. "My point is that I saved the company . . . I certainly didn't pull this figure out of the sky and say `I'm due this money from Century'. I can assure you I earned every single penny of it," he said.
Mr Patrick Hanratty SC, for the tribunal, said there was no account "of any such indebtedness" in any Century account. Mr Barry said he accepted it was wrong that details of the services he provided were not kept.
He also denied he made payments to Mr Ray Burke apart from the £35,000 he gave him in 1989 as a political donation. He told Mr Hanratty there was no evidence to support the accusations, even though he had "trawled through my bank accounts". "The only reason you didn't find evidence is that there is none there," he said.
Asked if he paid money to Mr Burke in 1990, Mr Barry said as it was not an election year he was 100 per cent certain he did not.