Two community activists have told the Mahon Tribunal that developer Owen O'Callaghan kicked his then business partner Tom Gilmartin when he mentioned a £50,000 payment to a senior politician.
One of the men, Pat Jennings, said Mr Gilmartin cried out after being kicked and it stopped him mentioning the name of the politician.
Mr Jennings said Tom Gilmartin had been complaining that politicians in Ireland were worse than the mafia and that they had been putting roadblocks in his way of his Quarryvale development.
He said during the meeting, also attended by Mr O'Callaghan and lobbyist Frank Dunlop in the Jensen Hotel early in 1991, Mr Gilmartin went on to say he had to pay a senior politician £50,000.
Mr Jennings said at this point Mr O'Callaghan kicked him in the shin and Mr Gilmartin cried out: 'Jesus Owen. Why are you kicking me?' He said there was an embarrassed silence afterwards.
John McCann, a member of Sinn Féin, also described the incident. He said Mr Gilmartin was loudly effing and blinding about Irish politicians being a bunch of corrupt bastards.
He said after Mr O'Callaghan kicked him they had a good laugh.
The tribunal heard that Mr Gilmartin denies the meeting ever took place.
SF Cllr insists he did not threaten Gilmartin
Earlier Sinn Féin Councillor Christy Burke offered to take a lie-detector test to prove he did not threaten Mr Gilmartin on behalf of a rival developer.
Mr Gilmartin told the Mahon Tribunal that Mr Burke was one of three men who said they were from the IRA and warned him to stay away from Clondalkin.
Mr Burke said he never met Tom Gilmartin in his life and would like to sue him.
He also said he never met Mr O'Callaghan, who Mr Gilmartin claims orchestrated the threatening meeting in the late 1980s or 1990s.
Mr Burke was asked by tribunal counsel why he was so angry when the inquiry simply asked him by letter if he had met Mr Gilmartin during a resident's meeting in a Clondalkin pub.
Mr Burke replied that he was annoyed because Quarryvale was outside his constituency and because he had only been in a pub two or three times in the past 30 years.
Mr Burke admitted he had met Mr Dunlop, who acted as Mr O'Callaghan's lobbyist for Quarryvale, on a number of occasions in the 1990s about other issues.
He said he was trying to secure job creation for the inner city.
Mr Burke said a reference by Mr Dunlop in his records to leaving an envelope for him in city hall in 1992 could have referred to development plans such as the Parnell St project.
He said he had never received a political donation from Mr Dunlop.
