Martin Mansergh (Tipperary South, Fianna Fail)

Guided and prompted by a journalist friend, reputedly familiar with Colombia and a variety of passports, as well with the many highways and byways of Irish politics, the witness is a vehicle for floating all sorts of hypotheses in the hope that an investigative trawl will throw up something. Then when documents are circulated, they are promptly leaked to this journalist or other journalists.

The 17th century French writer Nicholas Boileau once said: "Le vrai peut quelques fois n'être pas vraisemblable." The truth can sometimes be improbable.

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