Mr Michael Lowry got "a good price" from Mr Patrick Doherty for paintings and furniture he sold to the property developer for £35,000 when he was a minister, an antiques expert told the tribunal.
Mr Charles Fleury, who with his wife runs antique businesses from Cahir, Co Tipperary, and Francis Street in Dublin, told counsel for the tribunal that he had valued four items for Mr Lowry in March 1995.
Among them was a landscape painting by the 19th-century painter Henry John Boddington, which he valued at £18,000. The other items which Mr Fleury included in the valuation were a painting of gun dogs by Colin Graham, a George II walnut bureau and a three-piece 19th-century clock set.
Mr Fleury said he was under the impression he was valuing the items for insurance purposes and it had not occurred to him that Mr Lowry might wish to sell the goods. His valuation of the items at £38,000 was "maybe a little bit higher" than their "true and fair value" because "insurance companies will knock more off it when you are underinsured than being over-insured".
The tribunal chairman, Mr Justice Moriarty, asked Mr Fleury whether there was any question of the Boddington "being in the class of a Turner you would suddenly read sold in Sotheby's for some enormous sum two months later".
Mr Fleury replied: "Well, I think if that happened, people around Thurles would stop voting for Michael."
Following Mr Fleury's evidence, the tribunal chairman adjourned the public session until Tuesday.
Mr Ben Dunne will return briefly to the witness box next week, when evidence will also be heard from Mr Doherty.
The tribunal will hear evidence in closed session from bank witnesses who are circumscribed by confidentiality obligations.
