Mr Liam Lawlor drew £600,000 in two loans from the Czech Republic and used part of the money to pay off bank debts in the State, the tribunal was told yesterday.
The first loan was in 1995 for about £300,000 and the second was for a similar amount in 1997/98. He had paid back £30,000 to date. Mr Lawlor said he would communicate with the office in Prague to retrieve documents in connection with his Czech interests.
Mr John Gallagher SC, for the tribunal, asked about Mr Lawlor's sources of income other than his Dail salary and a Dublin consultancy.
Mr Lawlor said the loans were drawn down from an associate partner of his in the Czech Republic, Longwater Investments. It was not a company he had an interest in but had a joint venture profit-sharing agreement with.
Mr Lawlor said the registered name in the Czech Republic was the Irish Consortium which was a consultancy of which he was a member. He received recovery of expenses for flights and various other matters but no salaries or fees. He thought he had received £12,000 one year and £9,000 another year. Asked about Longwater, he said there were seven or eight property projects he was involved in with the company.
"I had a lot of bank debts in the mid-1990s and they advanced two loans due for repayment and they are also partners in a number of these property projects that are at various stages of negotiation," Mr Lawlor said.
It was a loan to him guaranteed against his assets in Ireland, his house and six acres, and his participation in the property project. The first loan in 1995 was for about £300,000 to pay off the banks in the State.
The second loan was for about the same amount, which went into the NIB and Ulster Bank in about 1997/98. Mr Lawlor said he owed £70,000 to AIB, about £30,000 to the Bank of Ireland, and £15,000 to Cambridge Finance. There was a loan from G Capital for £20,000 and arrears in the Irish Nationwide of about £12,000 for which there was a court order. There were other outgoings and ongoing costs over five to six years.
The chairman asked: "Does it follow at the end of the clearance of the debt, in the light of receipt of £600,000, you would have had a net amount somewhere in the order of anything from £200,000 to £400,000?"
Mr Lawlor said there was no great surplus.
Mr Justice Flood said he had worked out the loan repayment on £600,000 and the interest alone amounted to over £400,000. He asked: "Do you know many people who lend money, £400,000 or £600,000, who don't require payment of interest or any repayment for periods in excess of six years and don't correspond in a letter?" Mr Lawlor said he had a profit-sharing agreement with Longwater Investment and had also secured the loan with his own home.
He said projects he was involved in the Czech Republic would likely become profitable shortly.