During his evidence last December, Mr Dermot Desmond said he had no difficulty making the accounts of certain companies available to the tribunal. However, counsel for the tribunal, Mr Jerry Healy SC, said yesterday that it subsequently transpired he was reluctant to do so.
The companies concerned are Dedeir, one of Mr Desmond's Irish investment companies, and Freezone Investments Ltd, an Isle of Man company Mr Desmond insists he did not own but at one time had complete control over the assets.
Freezone was at the centre of dealings in the former Johnston Mooney & O'Brien site in Balls bridge, Dublin, which led to huge political controversy and to the then Taoiseach, Mr Charles Haughey, at one stage denying to the Fianna Fail parliamentary party that Mr Desmond was a personal friend; he was, Mr Haughey said, "a business friend".
In May 1990, Telecom Eireann bought the Ballsbridge site for £9.4 million. Telecom did not know that Mr Desmond, who was involved in organising the sale, was beneficially involved.
The site had been bought nine months earlier for £4 million, by a company, called Chestvale, to which Mr Desmond was connected. Telecom sold the site in 1994 for £5.6 million.
Freezone provided the funding for the dealings in the site. The company had an account with TSB bank in Grafton Street Dublin (not ACCBank as reported yesterday), and some of the proceeds from the sale were lodged to this account.
In July 1990, Mr Desmond made two huge cash withdrawals from the account, totalling £500,000, and put the money in a tennis holdall. He said later the money was for Mr Colin Probets of the Channel Islands, but a Government-appointed inspector, Mr John Glackin, suspected it might have gone to another party involved in the Telecom site dealings, Mr J.P. McManus. Mr McManus denied receiving the money.
Mr Glackin concluded in 1993 that Freezone was owned by Mr Desmond, a conclusion which the financier strongly contested.
While all these dealings were going on, the Haughey family yacht, Celtic Mist, was being refurbished. The bills were picked up by Mr Desmond, with £75,546 being paid in April/May 1990. The money came from the TSB account and from Dedeir.
Mr Desmond told the tribunal last year the money was a loan to Larchfield Securities, the Haughey company which owns the yacht.
Mr Desmond told the tribunal that Freezone was owned by Mr Probets. He said he had "unfettered discretion" in the use of the assets and accounts of Freezone and various powers of attorney over the affairs of Mr Probets, but insisted Mr Probets was the sole owner of the company.
When the company was liquidated in 1997, Mr Probets took on the Celtic Mist loan, Mr Desmond said. He said the Celtic Mist money had been treated as an asset in the accounts of Freezone and a liability in the accounts of his own company, Dedeir. The consolidated loan was taken over by Mr Probets and was subsequently taken over by Mr Desmond.
Mr Desmond has been very generous to his "business friend", Mr Haughey. In 1994 and 1996, Mr Desmond made payments to the former Taoiseach totalling £125,000 sterling. He insisted the payments were loans rather than donations, and told the tribunal he had written to Mr Haughey's tax advisers informing them of this.
It is not known if Mr Desmond gave money to Mr Haughey after 1996, as the tribunal's terms of reference do not go beyond that year. "If he needs money now on the back of his assets, I would gladly make it available to him," Mr Desmond told the tribunal.
He would make the money available on the same basis, without interest and without documentation.