The Mahon tribunal: The chairman, Judge Alan Mahon, has warned Mr Liam Lawlor of the seriousness of giving evidence under oath which he knows to be false, and of misleading the tribunal.
The tribunal's review of the co-operation Mr Lawlor has provided is likely to end today after four days of evidence.
Although it isn't clear yet what decision Judge Mahon will take, he intervened on numerous occasions yesterday to express doubt about the evidence provided by Mr Lawlor.
At one point, the chairman said the tribunal was not satisfied with Mr Lawlor's responses.
In spite of all his visits to Prague, where the politician has business interests that are under investigation by the tribunal, he hadn't produced a single document, he said.
Responding to Mr Lawlor's claim that he couldn't afford to pay overseas lawyers to produce the documents sought by the tribunal, Judge Mahon told the witness to produce evidence of his income over the past few months for the tribunal today.
Earlier Mr Des O'Neill SC, for the tribunal, had accused Mr Lawlor of putting "layers upon layers" into his business affairs and then claiming that he was unable to comply with the tribunal's requests for information because he wasn't a shareholder of the various companies involved.
At every stage Mr Lawlor had attempted to prevent the tribunal from obtaining information that eventually had to be elicited from him under oath in the witness box, Mr O'Neill said.
He gave the example of Zatecka 14, a Czech company linked to the politician.
Although Mr Lawlor was entitled to 75 per cent of the profits of this company, and his business associate, Mr Nicholas Morgan, was due the remaining 25 per cent, he claimed he couldn't produce the accounts of this company because it was a different legal entity.
He also refused to reveal one of the company's bank accounts.
Mr Lawlor said he wasn't the beneficial owner of the company. If he was, he would have been able to provide the tribunal with the documents.
Mr O'Neill said the tribunal was unable to compel such entities to appear before it, as it could with the witness.
Mr Lawlor had sworn two affidavits on without disclosing "a farthing".
However, Mr Lawlor said that complying with the tribunal was a near-impossible task for his one-man office.
He had a "major difficulty" persuading a busy lawyer in Prague or London to devote large amounts of time to an Irish tribunal investigating planning in Co Dublin.
He had nothing to answer for to Mr O'Neill, who was "smugly smiling on €2,500 a day".
