A portion of the £30,000 given to Mr Ray Burke in June 1989 by Mr James Gogarty on behalf of JMSE is still held in a "political fund", the tribunal was told.
Mr Burke said some of the money "has been used" but added that a decision still had to be made about the rest.
The tribunal was not given details about who currently controls the fund or how much money was in it.
Mr Burke said the money in the fund would have to be distributed in the future.
"It will not be used for my benefit, anything that remains in that political fund, as I have retired from public life two years ago," he said.
He was answering questions from counsel for the tribunal, Mr John Gallagher SC.
Mr Burke said suggestions of a connection between the £30,000 donation and an "expectation" of getting planning for certain lands did not arise because he was not a member of Dublin County Council in the period when the payment was made.
He also told the tribunal that he had opposed the rezoning of the lands being examined by the tribunal in 1993 and had made strong representations to the then minister for the environment, Mr Smith, about the issue. He also said that in the 1989 election an "unusual" number of donations were made by businesses.
"In 1989 I received subscriptions from the Irish business community from elements which I would never have received contributions from before, because they wanted the government of which I was a member re-elected," he said.
Outlining his version of events from June 1989, he said Mr Gogarty and Mr Michael Bailey, managing director of Bovale Developments, came to his house on the morning of either June 8th or 9th. He said nobody else was present at the meeting, which took place during that year's general election campaign.
He was contacted the day before the meeting by Mr Bailey, who said he wanted to make a political contribution. However, it turned out that Mr Bailey brought Mr Gogarty to the meeting and Mr Gogarty made the donation on behalf of his employer, JMSE, said Mr Burke.
He said he had never met Mr Gogarty before, but did know Mr Bailey, who had donated funds to Fianna Fail race nights on a few occasions. He said another reason he knew Mr Bailey was that his company was building houses near to his home.
He said the three men "discussed very briefly the political campaigns" and Mr Gogarty and Mr Bailey wished him well.
While he could not remember exactly, Mr Burke said his recollection was that Mr Gogarty handed him two envelopes. He thanked Mr Gogarty for the donation and the two men left.
Mr Gallagher asked him: "Were they big envelopes or small envelopes?"
Mr Burke replied: "Well, with the sum of money that was involved they must have been fairly reasonably sized envelopes."
The chairman of the tribunal, Mr Justice Flood, said the laptop computer he was using "must be more or less the size of the bundle you received."
"It would be a fairly unique event in most people's lives to get that amount of cash," he added.
Mr Burke said he recently learned from documents discovered by the tribunal that Mr Gogarty had given him £20,000 in cash and a £10,000 cheque. He said for many years his recollection was that he had received £30,000 in cash.