The resignation of Mr Des O'Malley as leader of the Progressive Democrats had been hastened by newspaper articles which contained a "constant drip of innuendo", according to the Attorney General, Mr Michael McDowell.
In the final part of the four part series on Mr O'Malley, screened by RTE last night, Mr McDowell said it was suggested in the articles that Mr O'Malley had been dishonest to the beef tribunal and was personally "less than scrupulous" about his financial affairs.
These articles, mainly in the Sunday Business Post and written in 1993, were done so at the "behest of people who had hundred of millions of pounds at their disposal who just wanted to see O'Malley off stage", Mr McDowell claimed.
They concerned election time donations from Mr O'Malley's brother-in-law, Mr Peter McAleer, a former director of Tara Mines, to Mr O'Malley's wife, Pat.
Mr O'Malley said that the money had helped to pay for minding their children when his wife was canvassing fulltime in general election campaigns.
"And she was given money for that purpose by her brother which I thought was a fairly harmless thing to do but a huge deal was made of it."
But the newspaper's editor, Mr Damien Kiberd, rejected the suggestion it had been running an agenda on behalf of business against Mr O'Malley.
"The Sunday Business Post over the years had published an enormous number of articles which were inimical to the business interests of the people with whom Mr O'Malley clashed. In other words, we were on the same side as O'Malley in many ways." In the programme, Mr Pat Cox spoke about the PDs running Mr O'Malley as a candidate in the 1994 European elections. Once that decision was made he decided to leave the party and stood as an independent candidate.
Party leader Ms Mary Harney said Mr Cox had been disappointed to lose the party leadership and had also given a commitment on the dual mandate.
Mr Cox said he felt he would have liked "at least to have made his pitch to the party" to stay on as an MEP, but he had read an article in the Limerick Leader in 1993 with the headline "Mary wants Des for Europe".