Reaction: Ben Dunne:Former head of Dunnes Stores supermarket group Ben Dunne yesterday accused the Moriarty tribunal of branding him a liar.
Reacting to news that the tribunal did not accept that he could not remember making contributions of up to £280,000 sterling to former taoiseach Charles Haughey, Mr Dunne said the report was "effectively calling me a liar".
"I have never been accused of being a liar before and I did not tell lies," he said. "The tribunal has called me a liar and I dispute and refuse to accept that.
"I am not a liar, in everything I have done in life, I have never hidden behind a smokescreen."
He stressed several times that he answered all questions from the tribunal honestly and told the inquiry all he knew.
Mr Dunne and Dunnes Stores paid Mr Haughey a total of IR£2 million between 1987 and 1993. The biggest of these was the so-called "Tripleplan" cheque for £282,500 sterling, which was drawn on Dunnes Stores in Bangor.
During this period, the Revenue Commissioners were pursuing the Dunnes trust, which controlled Dunnes Stores.
Following a series of meetings that Mr Haughey organised between Mr Dunne and two Revenue chairmen, Séamus Paircéir and his successor, Philip Curran, the case was settled, saving the company an estimated £22.8 million. The report states that as a result, Mr Haughey's actions did benefit Mr Dunne.
It says that the tribunal cannot accept that Mr Dunne could not recall making a number of donations to Mr Haughey, including the Tripleplan payment.
Mr Dunne told RTÉ radio yesterday that "if I was an ordinary person reading this, I would be saying that he's calling Ben Dunne a liar". He added that if he were to pursue the matter, the tribunal's chairman, Mr Justice Michael Moriarty, would have difficulty proving that he lied to the inquiry.
Mr Dunne added that he was dealing with his own mental problems and said the tribunal's statement had left him emotionally upset.
He said his lawyers had submitted medical records for the period that showed he was suffering from memory loss. He argued that the report took no account of these submissions.
The report states that the tribunal "cannot accept what has been conveyed to it, in submissions and medical reports on his behalf", that he had forgotten payments made by him to Mr Haughey. A number of the payments dealt with had already been discovered by the McCracken tribunal, and Mr Dunne gave evidence in relation to these. But he told the inquiry he had no memory of further contributions unearthed by the Moriarty tribunal.
Asked yesterday if he intended seeking a judicial review of the findings, he declared: "I wouldn't bother my barney taking a judicial review."
