Broadcaster Gay Byrne told the tribunal yesterday he did not want the responsibility on his shoulders of ensuring the success of Century Radio with his own radio programme and that was the main reason for deciding against joining the station and turning down a £1 million draft.
Mr Byrne said he was first approached by Mr Oliver Barry when the legislation was passed bringing independent radio to Ireland.
He had absolute memory of one meeting, but he had been told he attended several. The one he remembered was in the Shelbourne Hotel.
"And there were present at that Oliver Barry, James Stafford, Enda Marron, who was probably there - he's a solicitor as you know - in his legal guise, Laurence Crowley, who was the chairman of the company, and Mr John Mulhern was there," Mr Byrne said.
Mr Hanratty said the proposal Century was putting was in relation to a national radio. Did he have a view on that?
Mr Byrne said he wondered aloud several times why they were going for a national licence. Why not settle for a local licence for Dublin and/or Cork? The licence was granted in January 1989, so the meeting was before that. Mr Byrne confirmed he never became an investor. Mr Hanratty asked if he had had the impression that the Century promoters were confident of getting the national franchise.
"I would have thought they were extremely confident, and what concerned me slightly was that their perception was that having Gay Byrne's name on the ticket, as it were, would swing it with the members of the IRTC. "And I was worried about that because I thought that too much confidence was resting on it. I didn't believe that members of the IRTC would give the licence just because Gay Byrne's name was on it," he said.
Mr Byrne said there were several reasons for turning Mr Barry down. First of all, he knew RTE and everybody there. Secondly, he began to doubt the viability of the operation as a national licence-holder.
The "swinger" for him was that they had placed such great store in having Gay Byrne's name on the ticket that when it would come to going on the air he felt very strongly that they would expect him to deliver an extraordinary number of listeners.
When eventually he would not succeed in doing that, it was his experience in the business that when a programme started going wrong, it was always "muggins" - the front man or woman - who got the blame.
"So the mark of failure would be upon me, and I didn't want that to happen," he said.
The day dawned when Mr Barry asked him for a decision and called to him at his home on a Saturday. "And he put an envelope on the table and said `That is the amount we discussed'," Mr Byrne said.
"I assumed that as we'd spoken in terms of £1 million for a three-year contract, [it was] £1 million up front. And I did not - if you're going to ask me, sir, did I see the £1 million written on this thing - I did not.
"It was an envelope, but I do remember he said `That's a draft and it's yours now and that's it and I need your answer' and I took the thing up, I assumed what it was, and I said `I do not want that in my house overnight. I wouldn't sleep a wink. Please take it away'," he said.
Mr Byrne said he told Mr Barry he would give him his answer on the following Tuesday. He met him at RTE and told him he was not going with it.