Ray Burke must have wiped his feet carefully in the sanitised mats newly installed to combat foot-and-mouth disease at the entrances of Dublin Castle. To anyone who remembers the battles between RTE and the Fianna Fail government of the late 1980s, it was certainly a sanitised version of their relationship that Mr Burke delivered at times from the witness-box yesterday.
At one point, the former Minister for Communications even praised RTE as an excellent service and spoke of his pleasure that the station continued to thrive. If the government had decided to licence a rival national commercial station, it was only to provide an alternative voice in the broadcasting market, Mr Burke explained.
After last week's examination of his personal finances, the tribunal yesterday began examining Mr Burke's involvement in the Century Radio saga. And it began at the very beginning, at the genesis of the idea for a national commercial station in late 1987.
But whose idea was it? Proposals to deal with the proliferation of pirate stations by setting up local and community stations were well advanced by the time Mr Burke became minister in March 1987. There was no mention, however, of a national station.
The co-founder of Century, Mr Oliver Barry, has told the tribunal that he had already started thinking about promoting a national radio station in 1987. Indeed, on November 6th, he met the broadcaster Gay Byrne and others to discuss the project.
Mr Burke said he had no knowledge of his friend's activities. If Mr Barry learned about the national franchise, it wasn't from him.
The first mention of a national station in official documents came on October 28th when Mr Burke informed his departmental secretary that the government had given approval for the concept. Yet there doesn't appear to have been any formal cabinet meeting at this time. Mr Burke said the government was "continually in contact" at the time. Formal approval was given by cabinet on November 16th.
The first cabinet memorandum drawn up by Mr Burke made no reference to a national station, nor did the text of the proposed legislation. It was only in a note to the text that the option is opened up. This stated that the Bill provided "a flexibility in approach" and could be used to introduce a national station "should it be decided to do so at a later date".
As Mr Justice Flood noted, the proposal for national radio went ahead "without prior inquiry and planning," unlike the other elements of the Bill.
Mr Burke threw up a number of reasons for proceeding with the idea. The break-up of state monopolies in broadcasting was the trend in Europe at the time, he said. New frequencies had become available.
However, the more immediate reasons had more to do with the government's attitude to RTE. Occasionally during his evidence, Mr Burke's anger with the station shone through, though he failed to take up an invitation to expand on references he made to the activities of RTE journalists.
According to Mr Burke, RTE was telling the government what to do but the government was "not going to be dictated to". The event which "triggered" the national franchise was a speech by RTE director general Mr T.V. Finn, which lambasted the Minister's broadcasting proposals.