THE LIST of recipients of Mr Ben Dunne's largesse is long. It covers government ministers and national schools, priests so that Masses could be said, and various political parties, a presidential candidate and a university. But nobody comes close to the £1.3 million Mr Dunne says he paid to former Taoiseach Mr Charles Haughey.
Mr Haughey will, according to letters sent to the tribunal, deny this. He wrote to the tribunal on March 7th saying "neither I nor any connected person or relative" received any money from Mr Dunne, other than small amounts received by his wife and son for election expenses, and one payment to his son Ciaran for helicopter services.
However, this was not the first time Mr Haughey was asked about this money. He enclosed letters from solicitors Matheson Ormsby Prentice dating from 1994 seeking the reimbursement of monies "improperly diverted to you".
His reply said. "As no such monies have been paid no repayment arises."
A letter from Mr Haughey to the tribunal on April 3rd said. "A careful perusal of the documents on their own do not corroborate the allegations made against me."
The tribunal heard details of how the payments were allegedly made. A friend of Mr Haughey, Mr Des Traynor, now deceased, had approached a close friend and business associate of Mr Dunne's, Mr Noel Fox, seeking help for Mr Haughey, who was in financial difficulties.
Asked for his reaction to this, Mr Dunne said. "When I'd hear of someone's financial problems, I'd say, Yes, sure.
Mr Traynor, a former accountant in Mr Haughey's former firm, was a director of a Cayman Islands bank, Ansbacher Ltd, of which Mr John Furze was joint managing director. This had accounts in Guinness and Mahon (Ireland), a Dublin merchant bank.
Mr Dunne agreed to give money to Mr Traynor, via Mr Fox, on the understanding it was for M Haughey. Five payments were made, of which one, for £201,000, was made directly to Mr Haughey. The others were made in accordance with instructions given by Mr Traynor.
They involved cheques payable to Mr Furze in some instances, and, in others, cheques directly payable to the Ansbacher Ltd bank in the Cayman Islands. The money found its way back to the account of this bank in Guinness and Mahon in Dublin.
The next biggest beneficiary of Mr Dunne's generosity was Mr Michael Lowry, at the time a Fine Gael TD and businessman. He was paid almost £500,000, on top of having a £390,000 extension to his house built by Mr Dunne.
This money was related to their business relationship, and some of it was clearly for specific purposes, such as Christmas bonuses for staff and for building storage facilities. Some of it was bonus payments to Mr Lowry himself, and some of this found its way to him by very circuitous routes.
In particular, three payments, totalling £125,000 sterling in all, were paid into an account set up by him for this purpose in the Isle of Man. This money eventually found its way to his building society account in Cork.
Asked about his reason for paying this money, Mr Dunne said. "I was looking at a situation where we had an operator around the group who was taking an awful lot of hassle away from me."
However, he said he had no idea why he was asked by Mr Lowry to pay some of his bonuses into an offshore account.