The former chairman of JMSE, Mr James Gogarty, wanted £300,000 to £400,000 lodged to an offshore account as part of his pension settlement, the current chairman, Mr Joseph Murphy jnr, told the tribunal.
Mr Gogarty had asked that the full amount be "paid by the company abroad to avoid tax" or else paid into the accounts of other family members, Mr Murphy said in response to questioning by Ms Patricia Dillon SC, for the tribunal.
He himself had had no direct dealings with Mr Gogarty with regard to his pension negotiations. His father, Mr Joseph Murphy snr, had instructed Mr Roger Copsey to look into it. "I understood that Jim Gogarty had been a good, loyal servant to the company down through the years," he said.
And while he might have heard the matter discussed from time to time in the UK, he was not directly involved. But he was of the opinion that Mr Gogarty should be treated fairly.
Ms Dillon referred him to a meeting that took place on February 7th, 1989, between Mr Gogarty and Mr Copsey, in which the former chairman had put forward his pension settlement demands. The list included a bonus payment for "helping to get back the Murphy companies".
She asked whether that item referred to the proposed take-over of the company by Mr Liam Conroy, the former chief executive, to which Mr Murphy replied: "Jim Gogarty did not help us in any shape or form in that litigation. In fact, he hindered us."
It was at this point that he referred to the £300,000 that Mr Gogarty wanted paid into an offshore account. While he was not directly involved in the negotiations, he reiterated, the demand had been conveyed to him at two meetings that he had had with Mr Gogarty in Dublin.
Mr Garrett Cooney SC, for the Murphy family, expressed his surprise that this evidence had not been elicited earlier by the tribunal's legal team in its examination of Mr Gogarty, given that they had claimed the right to have access to all the evidence.
Ms Dillon responded that the tribunal had dealt with all the information given to it, including the bank accounts held offshore. "Mr Gogarty was examined and cross-examined. It was not suggested by any member of the Murphy legal team that there were any other offshore accounts. If the witness is suggesting this, it is the first time that we've heard about it," she said.
This was information "peculiarly in the knowledge of this and other witnesses" on behalf of JMSE, she argued. There was no indication in the course of cross-examination by any member of the legal team that such an allegation would be put.
Mr Justice Flood adjourned the proceedings at that stage and, when the tribunal returned, Mr Murphy again was questioned about matters affecting Mr Gogarty's pension.
"In the 1960s and 1970s he was loyal and hard-working and was due a decent pension," he said. That loyalty, however, had given way to "lies and blackmail" as far as he was concerned. He referred to a meeting between Mr Gogarty and his father on May 22nd, 1989, in London in which he had "a small part", as the formal objective was to discuss the restructuring of JMSE and AGSE.
Mr Gogarty might have brought up his pension again, he conceded. It was a time when he was raising every grievance he had with the current JMSE management at the time, including Mr Liam Conroy, the chief executive, and Mr Maurice Sweeney, the managing director. "He was ranting and raving. He wanted £300,000 plus another £250,000 from ESB money that he had got fraudulently," Mr Murphy jnr told the tribunal.
Ms Dillon asked him to watch his choice of language.