Here we go again. Once again the Flood tribunal has been threatened with the High Court and all the inevitable delays and expense that involves.
While the tribunal deferred its threat to bring builder Tom Brennan to the Four Courts, auctioneer John Finnegan made as if to join the long line of tribunal litigants when his lawyers thundered about the "systematic assassination", "utter vilification" and "fraud" visited upon their client.
Mr Dominic Hussey SC, for Mr Finnegan, produced a short telex he claimed proved that his client had no part in the payment by builders Brennan and McGowan to Ray Burke in November 1984. Not only that, but Mr Finnegan had been "kept in the dark" about the payment.
Unfortunately, Mr Hussey failed to explain just how the telex exonerated Mr Finnegan. There was nothing new in the message passed between the offshore advisers of Brennan and McGowan and Mr Finnegan, which referred to the deduction of £10,000 "as agreed" from the auctioneer's share of proceeds from land-dealing.
There was certainly nothing to justify Mr Hussey's extraordinary call for Mr Finnegan to be "discharged" from the tribunal's hearings. It wasn't surprising, then, that Mr Pat Hanratty SC, for the tribunal, dismissed it as a "PR stunt" and a "gross exaggeration in support of a vacuous proposition".
Since Mr Finnegan is playing the part of the innocent abroad, misled by others and traduced by the tribunal, what about the "unanswered questions" referred to by Mr Hanratty? Mr Finnegan says he believed the £60,000 fund that made its way to Ray Burke was for architects' fees. But where's the evidence of any such work?
When Mr Finnegan declined to put a one-third share of £20,000 into this fund, Brennan and McGowan made up the balance by paying £25,000 each. So why did the amount paid to Mr Burke have to be £60,000? Was it a pre-agreed sum, rather than the unsolicited "political donation" claimed by Mr Brennan?
What was Mr Finnegan doing in partnership with Brennan and McGowan? Why was he getting large sums of money offshore for properties in which he had no beneficial interest? When Brennan and McGowan bought land from the Sacred Heart nuns in Monkstown, for example, Mr Finnegan ended up with a payment of £105,000 in his Jersey bank account.
And what about Mr Finnegan's dual role in many of these transactions? In the Monks town case he introduced the nuns to the eventual buyers, Brennan and McGowan, and witnessed their purchase of the property. Later he received a substantial offshore payment from the buyers in relation to the transaction.
Mr Hussey's explanation yesterday - that the auctioneer's duty to the nuns ended on August 6th, 1976, the day a contract was signed - fails to answer why he should receive money from both the seller and buyer in a transaction.
What did the Revenue Commissioners know about this ingenious web of shelf companies and bogus transactions, all designed to avoid capital gains tax, stamp duty and income tax?
Did they know that many of the companies were mere files in a cabinet, that the transactions had no commercial reality, that correspondence was orchestrated? Was Mr Finnegan's beneficial interest in some transactions revealed to the Central Bank, which made decisions on exchange controls?
Meanwhile, Mr Brennan spent the day pleading ignorance of the arrangements put in place to protect and augment his wealth offshore. Even when company minutes showed that Mr Brennan was present and aware of the various transactions, he pleaded ignorance or loss of memory. Mr Hanratty, persevering to the end, might as well have been talking to himself.
pcullen@irish-times.ie