Former Fianna Fáil minister Mr Ray Burke faces a €10 million legal bill after the Mahon tribunal today refused to award him costs.
In a ruling issued this morning, tribunal chairman Judge Alan Mahon dismissed an application by Mr Burke to have his costs paid by the Department of Finance.
Judge Mahon said Mr Burke had decided from a early stage not to co-operate with the tribunal and "that this approach and stance was maintained by him throughout the inquiry".
He was in no doubt whatsoever that Mr Burke "knew full well that his evidence and the information being disclosed by him and others to the tribunal was false and misleading".
Judge Mahon said: "It is clear that the failure on the part of Mr Burke to co-operate with and give truthful evidence and information to the tribunal was of such a degree and such an extent as to cast a shadow over all the evidence which directly related to the issues being investigated by the tribunal."
He concluded that this was not "an incidence of an individual witness being merely liberal with the truth, or occasionally giving false or tardy evidence, or withholding the less important aspects of a story in the hope of slowing the progress of the investigation (all of which in themselves amount to non-co-operation under one guise or another).
"It is rather a case of a crucial witness setting out deliberately to mislead the tribunal in the hope and expectation that the inquiry would prove inconclusive or produce erroneous findings," Judge Mahon said.
Mr Burke, who gave evidence under oath at the tribunal for 26 days, had submitted a claim for legal and associated costs in excess of €10 million.
His lawyers maintained he would suffer an "unfair and crippling" financial penalty if the tribunal withheld his costs.
They said their client was not in a position to pay his legal debt and that withholding his costs would amount to a punishment or penalty equivalent to a guilty verdict in a trial.
Judge Mahon said he had carefully considered both written and oral submissions made on behalf of Mr Burke in support of his application for costs.
He said he was quite certain that had Mr Burke "largely co-operated with and given truthful evidence to the tribunal" he would have been favourably disposed to awarding at least a portion of his costs, "even in the face of the very serious substantive findings of corruption".
In his ruling Judge Mahon said Mr Burke had "obstructed and hindered" the tribunal during three separate modules of investigation.
In the Brennan and McGowan module, he said, Mr Burke had not given a truthful account of the circumstances in which he came to acquire ownership of the property known as Briargate in Swords, Co Dublin.
He said the inquiry's second interim report had also concluded Mr Burke had not been truthful as to why he had opened offshore bank accounts in the Isle of Man and Jersey.
In the module concerning Century Radio, Mr Burke was found not to have given a truthful account of the circumstances and considerations that led to payment to him of £35,000 by the radio station's founder, Mr Oliver Barry, in May 1989.
In the module involving the allegations by Mr James Gogarty, Mr Burke was found to have misled the inquiry in relation to how he came to receive monies from Joseph Murphy Structural Engineering.
The tribunal will announce its ruling on the cost applications of builders Mr Thomas McGowan and Mr Joseph Brennan tomorrow.
