The tribunal has heard of a conflict of evidence between the developer Mr Tom Gilmartin and former government minister and EU commissioner Mr Ray MacSharry.
Mr MacSharry has told the tribunal that he never met fellow Sligo man Mr Gilmartin and never had any dealings with him.
However, Mr Gilmartin yesterday insisted that he met Mr MacSharry on two occasions in 1987.
Mr Gilmartin said he was living in England at that time but was on holiday in Sligo when he met the then minister for finance.
He had a brochure of his planned development at Bachelor's Walk in Dublin and decided to call into Mr MacSharry's clinic one Saturday morning in August.
Mr MacSharry heard his story and asked him to visit his Dublin office after the summer.
Mr Gilmartin said he called to Mr MacSharry's office in December and set out his case. The minister for finance told him that the government "would move heaven and earth" to get such investment, Mr Gilmartin said. But he felt Mr MacSharry's general attitude was "less than enthusiastic" because "his main concern was that he was going to Europe and he wasn't coming back". Mr MacSharry became an EU commissioner the following year.
Asked how he could explain Mr MacSharry's denial of any meeting, Mr Gilmartin said: "Well I know I was there."
This was Mr Gilmartin's first day to give evidence at the tribunal.
Before he took the stand, Mr Liam Lawlor told the tribunal that Mr Gilmartin's evidence was "a pack of lies" and that he had made "false, outrageous and unsubstantiated allegations".
He said that Mr Gilmartin's planned projects at Quarryvale and Bachelor's Walk were "significant failures", but not because politicians had interfered with them.
He said that the planned shopping complex and bus depot at Bachelor's Walk had failed because the British developer, Arlington Securities, was taken over by British Aerospace and the company had no interest in the Irish development.
Mr Gilmartin's Quarryvale project never stood a chance of success, Mr Lawlor claimed, because of its planned 1.5 million square foot size. It would have wiped out Tallaght Town Centre, sucked customers from the city-centre and devastated towns within 50 miles, Mr Lawlor said.
