A money-laundering investigation by an Irish bank led to the tribunal "cracking" the existence of Mr Liam Lawlor's offshore bank account in Liechtenstein, it has emerged.
Although Mr Lawlor insists he first told the tribunal about the account, tribunal lawyers revealed yesterday that the information came to light when Ulster Bank spotted a fake transaction orchestrated by Mr Lawlor.
In late 1998, the Palmerstown branch of the bank became unhappy with a £50,000 foreign lodgement to the account of a local taxi-driver, Mr John Patrick Long. In accordance with money-laundering legislation, it asked Mr Long for an explanation.
Mr Long explained that he was repatriating income he had earned in the UK. However, the bank manager considered it was "a bit too much for a taxi-driver to have in the account", the tribunal has already been told.
Inquiries with the international department of Bank of Ireland revealed only that the sender was "a client known to the bank".
Still unhappy with this explanation, Ulster Bank inquired again, and learned that the sender was Mr Lawlor. This information was transmitted to the tribunal.
Mr Long is a long-time associate of Mr Lawlor who opened two accounts in his name on behalf of the politician in 1997. In 1999, he also took out a credit card in his name and, without signing the back of it, passed it on to Mr Lawlor.
Up to this point of the Ulster Bank inquiry, Mr Lawlor had denied having any account in Liechtenstein.
Yesterday, he repeated his claim that the information about Liechtenstein came from him, not through the tribunal's "circuitous route".
He had provided the information "parallel to the bank" doing so and the tribunal was being "a bit disingenuous".
But he agreed with the chairman, Judge Alan Mahon, that the statement about the source of Mr Long's earnings was false and that he, Mr Lawlor, had orchestrated the story.
Mr Lawlor said the banks were pursuing him at the time and if he had placed the money directly in the Bank of Ireland, it would have been taken to pay off a loan.
Mr Des O'Neill SC, for the tribunal, accused Mr Lawlor of "playing cat and mouse" with the tribunal, by only revealing information when the tribunal had already obtained it.
In the course of exchanges with Mr O'Neill, Mr Lawlor boasted that he obtained £50,000 in libel damages from a newspaper that wrote "a pack of lies" about his involvement in land deals.
Earlier, Mr Lawlor accused the tribunal of manipulating evidence to the High Court by giving a false impression that he was failing to co-operate.
He said the tribunal had "run to the High Court overnight" in 2001 after receiving a series of legal letters concerning a land deal at Coolamber, Lucan, directly from his former solicitor, Mr Noel Smith.
Mr Lawlor maintained Mr Smith should have sent the files directly to him instead of to the tribunal.
"If I was given them I would have discovered it to the tribunal and you have manipulated it in the High Court."
However, Mr Smith said, in a letter to Mr Lawlor in 2001, that the politician collected all his files from his office in March 1999. The politician pledged to provide Mr Smith with a copy of the documents and pay £5,500 in fees.
These conditions were "all Noel Smith's invention", Mr Lawlor told Judge Gerald Keys. Mr Smith was trying to bill him for a company which wasn't his, he said. The file he actually collected from Mr Smith in 1999 was a different one.
He suggested Mr Smith could have mislaid files.
Judge Keys said Mr Lawlor had made a serious allegation against a solicitor that was untrue.
Judge Mahon asked the witness not to make allegations that were not true. If Mr Lawlor had a complaint against Mr Smith, he could have brought it to the Law Society. Mr Lawlor said he did this, but got nowhere.
If the tribunal wanted to know about the dispute between him and the lawyer Mr John Caldwell, Mr Lawlor said, it should get the "Frank Ward file" which had all the details.
Mr O'Neill asked the witness if he had read this file.
Mr Lawlor said he hadn't.
"Do you know the file is blank?" Mr O'Neill asked. There wasn't a single document in it. He accused Mr Lawlor of obfuscation and attempting to "muddy the waters" in his answers.
