The highly popular broadcaster and journalist has been propelled into the centre of the controversy involving payments to Taoiseach Bertie Ahern after it emerged he claimed to the Mahon Tribunal that property developer Owen O'Callaghan told him he had paid money to Ahern in the early 1990s.

The Sunday Tribune has learned that, in an interview with Tribunal lawyers earlier this year, Dunphy described as a "dastardly act" the manner in which the CPI was closed down. Government ministers had questioned the CPI's credentials because of Connolly's involvement and this was seen as the major factor in benefactor Chuck Feeney's decision to withdraw funding for it.

It is understood the issue of the CPI came up when lawyers asked Dunphy why he was before them now and not some years ago. While Dunphy dismissed any suggestion there was any personal hostility between he and Bertie Ahern, he did bring up the "dastardly" way in which Connolly and the CPI had been closed down.

When asked a direct question, Dunphy confirmed to the lawyers that this was the reason why he was there now talking to them, stating that if the government was prepared to take out a decent journalist in that way and he had something to contribute . . . which he had been talking to Frank Connolly for years about . . . then he felt he should give it to the tribunal and that's what he was doing.

Dunphy was unavailable for comment yesterday but friends dismissed as "complete rubbish" any suggestion that he had come forward with the information to the tribunal because of what had happened the CPI or at Connolly's behest.

They stressed that it was the Mahon Tribunal that contacted Dunphy . . . because of his links with O'Callaghan when the two men were involved in plans to build a new football stadium in west Dublin and to attract then Premiership side, Wimbledon, to Ireland . . . and not the other way around.

"Eamon went up there [to Dublin Castle] because he was asked. It was absolutely nothing to do with Frank Connolly.

If anything, he would have been reluctant to become a witness, " one acquaintance said. He added that Dunphy regarded Owen O'Callaghan as a completely honest and straight guy; stressed there was absolutely nothing untoward involved in the project to bring Wimbledon FC to Dublin and played down the impact of Dunphy's evidence.

"What Eamon is relating is hearsay, told to him by O'Callaghan. It has no dramatic impact, " the friend said, adding that the interview with the tribunal was a very long one and had gone on for over two hours.

Fine Gael had seized on Dunphy's revelation that O'Callaghan told him he had paid money to Bertie Ahern describing it as "dramatic and potentially damaging new information".

The party's Seanad justice spokesman Eugene Regan said the testimony given by Dunphy to the Tribunal backed up the allegation that O'Callaghan paid Ahern for political favours and raised questions about the tax designation of a development site in Athlone in 1994.

Dunphy's claim "further undermined the Taoiseach's already unbelievable explanation for the 300,000 worth of lodgements moving around his and his partner's accounts over a 20-month period in the early to mid-1990s, " Regan said.