It took just hours for Mr Joseph Murphy jnr to discover he had wrongly told ail politician, Mr Dermot Ahern of Fianna Fail in 1997 that his company did not make a payment to a politician, yet it took over two months for Mr Murphy to pass this information on to Mr Ahern, who had been sent by the Taoiseach to interview him about allegations then circulating about payments to Mr Ray Burke.
And this happened only because Mr Ahern rang Mr Murphy on September 10th, 1997, according to Mr Murphy. This was the day Mr Burke revealed to the Dail the details of the £30,000 he got from the Murphy group. Mr Ahern says he cannot recollect this call.
Mr Murphy went straight from his second meeting with Mr Ahern in July 1997 to see Mr Roger Copsey, the company's former financial controller, he told the tribunal. Mr Copsey told him, "yeah, there was some kind of contribution" and it would be necessary to check the records.
How does this square with Mr Ahern's evidence last May? He told the tribunal Mr Murphy was "absolutely categoric that there was no way in which any money could have been paid out of the company". He double-checked the matter with his father, Joseph Murphy snr, and the managing director, Mr Frank Reynolds.
Even yesterday, Mr Murphy admitted he had checked with Mr Copsey about any possible payments a few months previously and was told there was none. He relayed this information to Mr Ahern at their second meeting on July 1st.
Yet now we learn that Mr Murphy got wind of the payment within hours from Mr Copsey. He said he went to Mr Copsey's office directly after meeting Mr Ahern and expressed his concern at what the politician had just told him. However, in Mr Ahern's account, it was Mr Murphy who did all the talking. And why did Mr Murphy go to Mr Copsey, if he was so sure that no payment had been made?
Mr Murphy said Mr Copsey "may have mentioned Jim Gogarty as well" when he "sort of remembered" the contribution. No politician was identified. We know that at least four Murphy employees were involved in either preparing or delivering the payment to Mr Burke, so how does the company explain the fact that its chairman, managing director and other senior executives seemed to be unaware of the payment, and that the financial controller was at first unaware, but then recollected - this was just days after Mr Burke was appointed to Cabinet - that there was a payment?
These are more than matters of minor detail; the stakes are enormous. Mr Murphy is suing Mr Ahern over remarks the politician made on RTE in May 1998, and the evidence given at the tribunal is being watched closely by both sides.
There was a further contradiction with Mr Ahern's evidence, when Mr Murphy said he had "no opinion" regarding the sale of the lands the company owned in north Co Dublin. Mr Ahern recalled him saying that he (Murphy) was "unhappy" with the fact they were being sold at agricultural value.
In his evidence, Mr Murphy rejected all the allegations made against him by Mr Gogarty in forceful terms, and lost no opportunity to return some of the abuse meted out to him during Mr Gogarty's four-month tenure in the witness-box.
He denied being involved in the payment to Mr Burke and denied paying off the former assistant Dublin city and county manager, Mr George Redmond, in 1989. He said he had never met Mr Burke; he only met Mr Bailey in 1992, and only met Mr Redmond at the tribunal this year.
Mr Gogarty was a "liar", his allegations were "rubbish" and he repaid his loyalty to the Murphy family with "lies, blackmail and theft". When he accused Mr Gogarty of "fraudulently" obtaining money from the ESB, Ms Patricia Dillon SC, for the tribunal, asked him not to use such words. "It's a pity someone didn't say it to Gogarty when he was giving me four months of abuse up here," the witness replied angrily.
Asked why Mr Gogarty had made these allegations, Mr Murphy said it was because he had refused to pay Mr Gogarty up to £400,000 he was demanding. "He said: `Mark my words, I'll get you'," the witness alleged.