The current managing director of JMSE had no recollection of signing two cheques payable to cash for £30,000 on June 8th, 1989, the day on which it was claimed Mr Ray Burke received such a sum.
He could have signed them, he told the Flood tribunal. There was a strong probability, indeed, that he had, he answered, in reply to Mr John Gallagher SC, counsel for the tribunal.
In that event, he said, he would have queried what they were for. "That was my style."
Mr Frank Reynolds said he could not recollect asking this question if the cheques were, in fact, presented to him. The stubs showed the cheques in question were for cash and referred to Grafton Construction, "a sister company", and he did not become a director of that organisation until a year later.
As such, it might have been represented to him as an inter-company loan. And that, indeed, appeared to be the case, since the total amount was repaid to JMSE "within six days" by Mr Denis McArdle, the solicitor who dealt with the affairs of Grafton.
The quality of Mr Reynolds's replies on this issue drew fire on a number of occasions from the chairman, Mr Justice Flood, who asked the witness to answer the questions as put to him and refrain from comment.
"Why do you think it was made out to Grafton Construction, and if it was a loan to Grafton, why was it being paid in cash?" the chairman asked.
"I might well have queried that and been told that it was an internal loan," replied Mr Reynolds, emphasising that since Grafton was not his immediate concern at that time, he would not have pursued the matter further.
The chairman was particularly puzzled that, as a senior executive in JMSE, Mr Reynolds had not satisfied himself as to why a sister company should be given "a bundle of cash by way of satisfaction of a request for money".
"I did not see a bundle of cash," Mr Reynolds replied. "I signed two cheques."
He was certain of one thing, however: he had not been present in Mr Burke's house when the money was handed over by Mr James Gogarty - even though the former executive chairman had told the tribunal that he had. Neither had he any recollection of accompanying accountant Mr Tim O'Keeffe to the Talbot Street branch of AIB that day to collect the cash.
He also repudiated a number of other key assertions made by Mr Gogarty. Mr Gallagher put it to him, for example, that he and Mr Murphy jnr had opposed Mr Gogarty's intention to sell the lands in north Dublin. "I did not know of his intention to sell the lands." And Mr Murphy jnr was not involved, he added, until a later dispute with the Baileys.
Mr Gallagher put it to him that Mr Gogarty had said Mr Reynolds had asserted that the plan was for Mr Michael Bailey "to take control and pursue the development", to distance Mr Murphy snr from the lands.
"A total fabrication on Mr Gogarty's part. I feel sorry to have to say that about him."
Earlier, Mr Reynolds had suggested to the tribunal that his former mentor, Mr Gogarty, "tended to tell white lies when it suited him". The events surrounding his negotiation of his pension settlement, in tandem with Mr Gogarty's withholding of the £700,000 final ESB payment "as a ransom", were an example.
He had had been very shocked by this, Mr Reynolds said. It seemed to be out of character. He found it hard to accept and even then was willing to "give him a second chance", in contrast to the other JMSE directors, who found Mr Gogarty's conduct reprehensible.
As time went on, however, Mr Reynolds said, his respect for Mr Gogarty was "less and less". He had tried to "blackmail" Mr Murphy jnr in 1992 in seeking a further £400,000 as part of his settlement. That was the final straw as far as Mr Reynolds was concerned, he told the tribunal.