FORMER European Commissioner Padraig Flynn, his wife Dorothy, and daughter Beverly Cooper-Flynn, a Fianna Fáil TD, are expected to be called to give evidence at the Mahon tribunal next month to help the judge unravel what happened to a £50,000 cheque given to Flynn by property developer Tom Gilmartin In what promises to be one of the most sensational sessions at the tribunal, Judge Mahon will seek to discover the final destination of the £50,000 cheque handed over to Flynn, when he was Minister for the Environment in the late 1980s.

At the time, Gilmartin was seeking to develop a massive shopping centre at Quarryvale, near Dublin.

Judge Mahon has announced he will begin the module dealing with the Quarryvale site on 2 March.

The opening statement by the tribunal will outline the evidence given by Gilmartin about his dealings with Flynn, the Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, Ray Burke, Liam Lawlor, George Redmond and Frank Dunlop.

In the High Court two years ago, Gilmartin said he met Flynn in 1988 and wrote out a cheque for £50,000, made payable to "cash" at the minister's request. Gilmartin believed the money was going to Fianna Fáil but it never reached the party.

Meanwhile, on Tuesday, the Supreme Court will set a date for hearing Beverly Cooper-Flynn's libel appeal after the failure of her High Court action against RTE, which accused her of selling a tax evasion scheme to clients of National Irish Bank.

The full hearing is expected to take place later this month, just a week before the Mahon tribunal module.