The Mahon Tribunal has heard how Taoiseach Bertie Ahern decided to pay back goodwill loans shortly after the payments became public last year.
Former Fianna Fáil fundraiser Des Richardson said it decided by most of the donors that they would give the repaid money to a charity of which Mr Ahern's ex-wife was patron.
Mr Richardson said he had twice refused to accept back the £2,500 he himself gave Mr Ahern as part of the dig out in December 1993. And he heard that other donors had done likewise.
But he understood why Bertie Ahern wanted to repay the money in September 2006.
Mr Richardson said Mr Ahern's secretary had said a cheque would be sent to him and he did not have to ask why.
Des O'Neill SC for the inquiry said Mr Ahern got a total of £39,000 in two dig outs, and 13 years later he repaid the money with interest totalling over €90,000.
Mr Richardson denied this resulted from any discussion about a tax liability.
He said it was a mistake to refuse the accept the money back from Mr Ahern in 1994. If he had it would not have caused Mr Ahern so much flak in the media, he said.
Mr Richardson said he was just making a contribution to someone on hard times.
Des O'Neill SC put it to him that there was no question of Mr Ahern being on hard times - Mr Richardson said in his view, he was.
He said most of the donors decided to send Mr Ahern back cheques totalling €60,000 to be given to the CARI charity for sexual abuse victims, which Mr Ahern's ex wife Miriam was involved with.
CARI sent a receipt to Mr Ahern and a month later sent a receipt to each of the six individual donors.
Bank record search
Earlier Mr Richardson said he could not explain why money he used to buy a £5,000 draft on behalf of another donor came from the account of Roevin Ltd, a company with two Manchester based directors.
Today he agreed to allow the tribunal to search the bank records of this company.
He denied there was any connection between the £5,000 payment and a false invoice used by Padraic O'Connor, formerly of NCB Stockbrokers, who had been approached for the donation.
The tribunal heard that the British company Roevin had owned Workforce, a company sold by Mr Richardson, which became Euro Workforce.
Mr O'Connor, former managing director of NCB, had admitted to the tribunal that a false invoice for £5,000 from Euro Workforce was used to cover a donation, but Mr Richardson said there was no connection.
Mr Richardson said he was surprised to hear Mr O'Connor tell him in 2005 that the money was not a personal payment to Mr Ahern but a corporate donation to his constituency funds.
