The former Fine Gael minister, Mr Michael Lowry, worked to an "excellent" standard in carrying out his duties to refrigeration clients, a former customer of Streamline Enterprises has told the Moriarty tribunal.
Mr Patrick Whelan, of Whelan Frozen Foods Ltd, agreed with Mr Justice Moriarty that Mr Lowry was "very capable and competent in his refrigeration contracting".
Mr Whelan recalled that in the early 1990s he planned the construction of a new cold-store at Whelan Frozen Foods Ltd's main premises at Jamestown Industrial Estate.
They sought quotations for the supply and installation of the required plant, which would cost them about £1 million.
Streamline Enterprises tendered the most competitive price: £109,640 plus £23,024 VAT.
Mr Lowry indicated he would be charging an additional fee for consultancy services of between £7,500 and £12,500.
Streamline Enterprises designed and specified the nature of the refrigeration facilities.
Mr Lowry's fee was agreed at £10,000 and he requested he be "fixed up in cash".
A cheque for £10,000, dated May 14th, 1992, was made payable to cash as payment to Mr Lowry.
Because the cheque was made out to cash, no VAT was charged, but this did not benefit Mr Whelan's company.
It was subsequently lodged to Mr Lowry's AIB account in Thurles.
In 1993 Streamline Enterprises again provided services to Whelan Frozen Foods in respect of the installation of refrigeration at a plant in Ballyglass, Ballysimon, Co Limerick.
The total cost of the works was about £500,000, with the costs of Streamline Enterprises agreed at £75,000 plus VAT of £15,750, along with Mr Lowry's suggested consultancy fee of between 7.5 and 12.5 per cent.
It was Mr Whelan's recollection "that at this time Mr Lowry displayed dissatisfaction at the level of his fee" for the work carried out by him at Jamestown Estate.
Whenever Mr Lowry met Mr Whelan "he would always bring up the point that he didn't receive enough money for that job".
Mr Whelan said he told him "you got paid for what you did and that's it".
Mr Lowry was later paid £5,000 for his work on the Ballysimon project and expressed no dissatisfaction.
A cheque for that amount was later lodged to his account in Thurles.
Ms Mairead Lynam, an assistant manager in the O'Connell Street branch of AIB in 1991, agreed that it appeared she had signed instructions to AIB Jersey in relation to Mr Lowry's offshore account.
She had never met Mr Lowry and had no recollection of signing the instruction dated July 17th, 1991, which read: "We should be obliged if you could forward all funds in the above account . . . and send cheque to branch."
She presumed she had been requested to sign the document by a senior and trusted member of staff.
Ms Lynam agreed that such an instruction would have been "extremely unusual" as Mr Lowry did not appear to have had an account in O'Connell Street.
She also felt such an instruction was unlikely to have been made without Mr Lowry or an agent of his requesting it.
