Efforts have been made at the tribunal to avert a High Court challenge by the Murphy group to a tribunal chairman's decision to admit an affidavit in evidence.
During a private session, lawyers made submissions before the chairman, Mr Justice Flood, on a proposed compromise over the admission of the affidavit sworn by the former JMSE chief executive, the late Mr Liam Conroy. The chairman later reserved his judgment.
The affidavit contains details of the tax affairs of Mr Joseph Murphy snr and his companies. Mr James Gogarty has claimed it accuses Mr Murphy of "everything under the sun".
When the tribunal sat in public session yesterday morning, Mr Desmond O'Neill SC, for the tribunal, said following representations on March 19th by counsel for JMSE and Mr Gogarty, the chairman had ruled that the contents of the affidavit could be brought to Mr Gogarty in evidence by his counsel. The chairman had then said that he would hear any submissions about procedure.
On Monday, March 22nd, JMSE's counsel informed the tribunal that an application for judicial review would be made to the High Court over the chairman's ruling.
On March 26th a letter from JMSE's solicitors, Fitzsimons Redmond & Co, proposed a means whereby they stated their concerns could be alleviated while at the same time upholding the ruling. They requested that there be a facility for hearing the evidence concerning the affidavit other than in public.
Mr O'Neill said the tribunal had stated that it would notify the Attorney General of the request, and copies of the affidavit were sent to him.
He said the question now was whether the application concerning the evidence of the contents should be in public or private. The Tribunals of Inquiry (Evidence) Act, 1921, amended 1979, provided that tribunals should be heard in public unless there were exceptional circumstances in the public interest.
In the High Court it was normal procedure that such applications would be heard in camera.
Mr Michael Cush SC, for JMSE, said he would agree that the substantive application should be heard in private. In hearing the application, the chairman was obliged to consider the nature of the affidavit and if the evidence became public it would render the application useless.
The chairman said he would follow High Court practice. He would move to other quarters and would hope to be back in the public section at 11 a.m.
Later Mr Justice Flood returned and said the application would take the whole of the morning and afternoon. He apologised to the professional teams, the public and the press and said he had come out to advise them as it was unfair on everybody to have to sit and wait. He regretted the inconvenience but it was a fundamental matter. He would adjourn the hearing in public until 10 a.m. today.