The chairman of the tribunal said yesterday the inquiry was to establish whether Mr James Gogarty was authorised to make a payment to Mr Ray Burke TD and the motivation behind such a payment.
Mr Justice Flood later added that there were other major considerations to be taken into account. However, he was adamant that these were the inquiry's fundamental questions.
The answers to these key questions hinged on the credibility of Mr Gogarty as a witness and on the credibility of all witnesses.
The chairman's summary, aimed at clarifying fundamentals, was issued during a lengthy disagreement between counsel for the tribunal and the Murphy legal team while Mr Frank Reynolds, the current JMSE managing director, was giving evidence.
It came about because of the apparent conflict between Mr Reynolds's sworn evidence and that given earlier to the tribunal by Mr John Bates, of Bates & Co, chartered accountants, the JMSE auditors.
Mr John Gallagher SC told the tribunal Mr Bates said he had started his investigation in the company's books for the year ending May 1990 for an "unvouched" figure of £30,000 in April 1997 and concluded: "We were looking for £30,000 and also £25,000 which we never found."
Mr Reynolds replied: "I did not ask him before August 1997 to deal with the matter relating to the £30,000."
Mr Garrett Cooney intervened to say that the figure paid by Mr Gogarty to Mr Burke was thought to be £40,000 until it appeared "in the public domain" through the media in August as £30,000.
The chairman said whether the figure was £30,000 or £40,000 was not the issue at the end of the day in the "Gogarty module".