The chairman of the tribunal, Mr Justice Moriarty, said he was "very concerned" that if he were to allow counsel for the Revenue Commissioners to inquire into the "internal arrangements" of companies connected to Dunnes Stores it could "involve potential hazards that are undesirable from the tribunal's vantage point".
He said it would be "utterly beyond the tribunal's terms of reference . . . if in any sense we were to embark upon what was tantamount to an appeal of liabilities that may have been declared or assessed".
Mr Justice Moriarty said it seemed to him at this juncture that counsel for the Revenue's remit "should be confined to inquiring into what was disclosed or known or ought to have been known by the Revenue in the context of events at the time".
He was ruling on an objection from counsel for the tribunal, Mr John Coughlan SC, to cross-examination of Mr Ben Dunne by counsel for the Revenue Commissioners, Mr James Connolly SC. Mr Connolly's questioning led Mr Dunne to begin outlining the history, structure and tax status of Equifex, one of trusts in the Far East connected to Dunnes Stores.
Mr Connolly said he was "pursuing a line of inquiry as to whether these were company monies or Mr Ben Dunne's monies". He said that whatever Mr Dunne's impression of the intention of his question had been, he had not proposed to "trawl over" historical background, as Mr Dunne might have thought.
Mr Justice Moriarty said he would maintain some flexibility in the context of future sittings of the tribunal.
