Builder admits that his statement has a number of errors

The builder Mr Joe McGowan has conceded that his statement to the Flood tribunal contains a number of "errors" about money donated to the former minister, Mr Ray Burke.

Mr McGowan and his business partner, Mr Tom Brennan, filed a second statement earlier this year, which corrected major inaccuracies in their evidence to the tribunal in April 2000.

On that occasion, Brennan and McGowan said large sums of money had been raised for Mr Burke at lavish fundraising events in Britain. They failed, however, to mention offshore payments totalling £125,000 made to Mr Burke between 1982 and 1985.

Mr McGowan has already conceded his evidence of last year was wrong. However, Ms Patricia Dillon SC, for the tribunal, said on Thursday the new statement and Mr McGowan's evidence of last July were also incorrect.

She pointed out that at various times during his evidence Mr McGowan gave differing versions of the identity of the recipient. On some occasions he said the money paid by him and Mr Brennan was for "Ray Burke"; at other times he said it went to "Ray Burke/Fianna Fail". No evidence has been found to show Fianna Fail got any of the money paid to Mr Burke.

Mr McGowan said he didn't know why, on three occasions, he had said the money was paid to Mr Burke only. Mr Brennan and Mr McGowan left it up to Mr Burke to decide how much money to pass on to Fianna Fail and how much to keep for his own purposes. Mr Brennan and Mr McGowan's statement said the sums of £60,000, £50,000 and £15,000 "came out of resources of companies which form part of the Brennan and McGowan group".

Ms Dillon pointed out that the companies which made these payments were offshore shelf companies and did not form part of the Brennan and McGowan's building companies. Some of them were partowned by the auctioneer Mr John Finnegan.

Mr McGowan agreed that this statement was "an error". He couldn't explain the reference.

The statement also said an English businessman, Mr Ernest Ottewell, who Mr McGowan has described as "an ardent supporter of Fianna Fail", acted as a treasurer of the fundraising efforts in Britain "on behalf of Fianna Fail".

However, when the tribunal checked with Fianna Fail, it was told that Mr Ottewell had never carried out any national fundraising for the party.

The witness agreed this reference was also incorrect. Mr Ottewell had acted as treasurer on behalf of the fundraising effort, not Fianna Fail.

Ms Dillon said the tribunal had contacted the late Mr Ottewell's son James in England. Mr James Ottewell said he had written to Mr McGowan expressing his "disgust" after the builder's evidence about his father last year. Mr McGowan denied that Mr Ottewell had reacted in this way. "He was a little bit upset at the publicity, after I had presented the facts as they happened." It was "a storm in a teacup".

Ms Dillon also accused the witness of failing to disclose a business relationship with an English accountant, Mr Ernest O'Brien, when he told the tribunal last July that Mr O'Brien had evidence showing that Mr Ottewell was involved in fundraising.