There was nothing improper about a figure of £26,250 which featured a number of times on Century Radio's accounts and documents, former Century Radio director Mr James Stafford told the Flood Tribunal yesterday.
On four occasions £26,250 appeared in some form in the company accounts or documents.
In June 1989, Century Radio paid £26,250 to Mr Oliver Barry's company, Quality Artistes Management. Mr Barry was a co-founder of Century Radio. The following January the same sum was paid back to Century Radio from Quality Artistes Management but was paid again by Century to Quality Artistes in December 1990.
Counsel for the tribunal, Mr Pat Hanratty SC, said £26,250 was also exactly 10 per cent of the figure Century Radio had to pay to RTE as a project management fee for setting up the transmission of the radio station. Asked whether there was a reason for this, Mr Stafford said: "To my knowledge there was nothing improper in it."
Mr Hanratty told the tribunal there were six cheques drawn from the Century Radio account in March 1989 which added up to £26,250. The sums on the cheques were round figures and the cheque numbers were in close sequence, he said.
When Mr Hanratty asked Mr Stafford whether he thought this puzzling, Mr Stafford replied: "Very."
On March 9th a cheque was written for £500 and on March 13th two cheques were written, one for £2,000 and one for £2,500. Mr Stafford said these payments were made to companies which had provided services for Century Radio when they made submissions to the Independent Radio and Television Commission to apply for the radio licence. One such company was Miriam Sound Hire, which supplied equipment used in a presentation to the IRTC.
A fourth cheque for £20,000 was written on March 22nd made out to Mr Barry.
In the Century chequebook journal there is an entry for £20,000 for "inducement payment" and Mr Stafford said Mr Barry could possibly have been paid this sum in order to pay presenters to work for the station.
On March 23rd a cheque was written for £250 and Mr Stafford said he could not recall what it was for. Finally, on March 24th a cheque was written for Moynihan Russell for £1,000. Questioned about this, Mr Stafford replied: "It means nothing to me."
All six cheques add up to £26,250.
Mr Hanratty said the cheques were in round figures, in close sequence, had no VAT paid on them and added up to £26,250.
He asked Mr Stafford if it was possible someone in Century Radio had made one payment of £26,250 and wrote out the cheques using different names to cover it up.
"That would involve conspiracy and I have never been involved in conspiracy," Mr Stafford replied.
Mr Hanratty then pointed to the figure of £52,500 in a document of projected cash flow for Century Radio. The sum was entered as "pre-launch legal and consultancy". He said all other figures in the document were uneven sums and the round sum of £52,500 suggested no VAT was paid on it.
Mr Stafford said it was possible the sum was a budgeted figure. Mr Hanratty asked why budgeted figures would appear in a document with actual figures. "What the significance is I don't know," Mr Stafford said.