FIANNA FAIL got hardly any money from Ben Dunne, the Labour Party got a little and Fine Gael got a lot.
This emerged yesterday from the evidence to the tribunal of the three party general secretaries, and Labour's deputy leader, Mr Ruairi Quinn.
The most substantial donation to Fianna Fail was £6,000 paid to Dublin South West constituency. His only other contribution was to field two teams, at a cost of £500 each, in a fund-raising golf classic. Dunnes Stores' Bray branch donated a food hamper worth £20 to the Kilcoole cumann.
The public had already been told of Mr Dunne's casual donation of £15,000 to Mary Robinson's election campaign. He came across Mr Quinn in the Barge public house in Ranelagh, where he was quizmaster for a pub quiz expected to raise £200.
Mr Quinn was bemoaning the fact that the Labour Party had commissioned some advertisements, which were very good, but it could not afford to run them. So Mr Dunne went to his car, got his cheque book, borrowed a pen worth £1.50 from Mr Quinn, and wrote a cheque for £15,000. Mr Quinn told him to keep the pen.
It had also already emerged that he gave, in all, £180,000 to the Fine Gael party. What was not revealed before was that Mr Jim Mitchell himself received £5,000 towards his election expenses in 1988 as well.
However, all the party secretaries insisted to the tribunal that if any favour was sought by any businessman in return for a donation that money would be refused or returned.
The Tanaiste, Mr Spring, gave evidence of seeking, and getting, £50,000 from Mr Dunne towards an aquadrome in Tralee. This was part of his normal fundraising activities for projects in his constituency, he explained. He, too, insisted that there was no question of any political favour being sought or given.
Offshore payments to Mr Michael Lowry were clarified yesterday, and it emerged that an earlier report of £105,000 being paid into an account called Badgworth in the Isle of Man, of which he was said to be the beneficiary, was erroneous.
This account, set up on the instructions of Mr Dunne's solicitor, Mr Noel Smyth, had one only lodgement, apart from interest payments. This was £40,000, transferred from an account belonging to Mr Dunne called Tutbury, also in the Isle of Man.
After less than a year the account was closed and the money paid to Mr Lowry, plus interest.
A separate £40,000 was paid to Mr Lowry from the Tutbury account. This took the form of a bank draft in his name drawn from the account of the Tutbury bankers, Rae Brothers, in the Bank of Ireland, Baggot Street.
In clarifying this, Mr Donal O'Donnell, counsel for Mr Lowry, made no mention of a further £25,000 payment to Mr Lowry from this account, which had been mentioned earlier in evidence.