Gogarty adds little in his testimony to own counsel

The chief witness at the Flood tribunal, Mr James Gogarty, repeated his assertions of wrongdoing by the Murphy group yesterday, but added little new.

Under cross-examination by his own counsel, Mr Frank Callanan SC, Mr Gogarty dealt with the issue of a political donation of £1,000 to the Progressive Democrats, which it was claimed he had made in 1989.

When he was shown a photocopy of the cheque, he acknowledged that it bore his name, but he maintained he had not made the donation. "No, never. With no disrespect to the Progressive Democrats, but never, never, never in my life did I do anything . . ."

It was put to him that a note attached to the photocopy, written by the JMSE managing director, Mr Frank Reynolds, contained the words: "Please find attached copy of cheque as discussed. Mr G said we should leave it up to the PDs as to whether it is paid cash or made out to the PDs." Mr Callanan asked Mr Gogarty if he ever gave such an instruction. He re plied: "No way, no way, no way."

Of the benefits which it had been said he received from JMSE, Mr Gogarty said £300,000 was provided to produce a pension fund for him. This pension amounted to £18,000 a year. He also said the £215,000 he was given as his commission from monies recouped from the ESB had amounted to approximately £105,000 after tax.

However, he said an agreement under which he was to provide consultancy services in return for an annual retainer of £23,500 had led to dispute. While Mr Gogarty received the money for the agreed five years, he had a disagreement with the Murphys about consultancy work he carried out for AGSE, a company he maintained was outside the agreement.

"Up until October 1990, most of the [consultancy] work I did would be for AGSE with Frank Reynolds going to England . . . particularly the nuclear sites and power stations and pursuing items." Mr Gogarty said he had billed the group separately, which they never paid.

A dispute also arose between Mr Gogarty and the Murphy group when Mr Gogarty applied for his P60 and discovered that his retirement payments had been registered as being paid from various companies within the Murphy group. Mr Gogarty instigated legal action claiming that his P60 should have come from one Murphy company.

Following this Mr Joe Murphy jnr wrote to Mr Gogarty telling him that "no further expenses of any nature whatsoever are to be incurred by you on behalf of Lajos Holding Limited or any other of the Murphy group companies effective from Monday October 15th, 1990, unless and until prior approval thereof is obtained in advance and authorised either by myself or Frank Reynolds".

Mr Gogarty said this was the end of his working relationship with the Murphy group.

Reference was also made by Mr Gogarty to an article which had featured in a British accountancy journal, which he claimed was shown to him by Mr Reynolds.

Mr Gogarty said the content of the article was a disciplinary hearing of the professional accountancy body and that the article claimed that Mr Roger Copsey, a JMSE financial controller, had been found guilty of professional misconduct and fined £15,000. Mr Gogarty said that this had made it difficult for him to work with Mr Copsey.

He added that one of his signed statements, which differed from his later evidence, had been made for separate High Court proceedings he had brought against the Murphy group. The difference in evidence had been cleared up by his sworn affidavit to the tribunal and his oral testimony.