Counsel for JMSE yesterday put it to Mr James Gogarty that cheque stubs and bank statements showed the sum paid to Mr Ray Burke was £30,000 and not £40,000 as Mr Gogarty contended.
Mr Gogarty disagreed. Mr Garrett Cooney SC, for JMSE, said the £30,000 was paid in £20,000 cash and a £10,000 cheque made out to cash. Mr Cooney put it to the witness that he had directed the drawing down of the funds from the JMSE account in AIB, Talbot Street, Dublin. He suggested Mr Gogarty had done so for the purposes of paying them over to Mr Burke.
"I'm telling you I did not," Mr Gogarty said.
Mr Cooney asked where the £30,000 had come from. Mr Gog arty said Mr Frank Reynolds had told him it came from Mr Roger Copsey's funds on the day they went in there on June 8th.
Mr Cooney said: "I suggest to you that that's an invention to cover up the indisputable facts which have emerged from these documents."
"I dispute that completely," Mr Gogarty said.
Earlier, Mr Cooney had shown Mr Gogarty photocopies of cheque stubs and bank statements. Counsel said he had asked Mr Gogarty questions concerning events in the week of June 8th, 1989, and in particular transactions carried out involving the JMSE accounts.
He referred Mr Gogarty to a cheque stub dated June 8th, 1989, Re: Grafton (cash) for £20,000. There was a second stub, the next cheque number serially, also dated June 8th, 1989, regarding Grafton (cash) for a £10,000 cheque.
Mr Cooney said the evidence would be that the handwriting was that of Mr Tim O'Keeffe (JMSE in-house accountant) and he would confirm it was likely he wrote out the cheques which related to those stubs and that they were signed by Mr Gogarty and Mr Reynolds. Mr Gogarty said if he (O'Keeffe) said that, he accepted it.
Mr Cooney put it to him that this (documentation) established that on June 8th two cheques were written on the JMSE account. The cheque for £20,000 was cashed on that day. The cheque for £10,000 showed up 16 days later on the JMSE account having come from its recipient, and presumably through his bank it had been cleared. Was that not right?
Mr Gogarty said: "Yes, it was me, was it? Who was the recipient?"
Mr Cooney said he would come to that. The cheques were drawn serially, they were written together one after the other and at the same time a payment of £20,000 was also put into JMSE.
Mr Cooney suggested to Mr Gogarty that payment into the account of the £30,000 obtained by Mr McArdle from the ICC was sent by him to JMSE to reimburse JMSE for the £30,000 drawn on June 8th and which comprised £20,000 in cash eventually and a cheque for £10,000.
Mr Gogarty said he did not know.