The Supreme Court has dismissed an appeal by businessman Denis O'Brien against a High Court order allowing the Moriarty tribunal to hold public hearings into the 1998 purchase of Doncaster Rovers Football Club.
The purchase was made by a company controlled by an O'Brien family trust.
In a majority decision, four of the five Supreme Court judges dismissed the challenge by Mr O' Brien against a High Court decision last October that the tribunal could go ahead with public hearings.
Ms Justice Susan Denham, in a judgment agreed with by the Chief Justice John Murray, Mr Justice Hugh Geoghegan and Mr Justice Nial Fennelly, said the purpose of the tribunal's inquiries was to restore public confidence in our democratic institutions.
She said that a technical or legalistic approach to interpreting the terms of reference may give rise to the view that the inquiry has not been made into all the relevant transactions.
The tribunal has to consider whether various property transactions were intended as a substitution for a payment of £147,000 to former Fine Gael minister Michael Lowry, which was reversed on the day of the establishment of the McCracken tribunal, and whether these transactions were part of a train of transactions related to the conferral of benefit on Michael Lowry.