Discharging somebody's debts is making a gift to them of the amount of the debt. Buying goods or services for them is a gift to them of the cost of the goods or services.
The €3,000 small gift exemption is an annual allowance. If
all the gifts that A gives to B in a single year do not exceed, in aggregate, €3,000, then the gifts are ignored for CAT purposes — no CAT is payable, and they do not eat into the lifetime CAT threshold that applies between A and B. But if the aggregate value of all the gifts that A gives to B in a single year exceeds €3,000, then the excess over €3,000 is taken into account for CAT purposes.
That's very clear but what if you paid for several things as opposed to cash payments that totalled over €3,000 but under €3,000 separately, ?
If, in the same year, A spends €5,000 paying for several things for B, €2,000 of that will exceed the small gift exemption and will eat into the lifetime threshold that applies between A and B (or, if that threshold has already been used up, will be chargeable to CAT). It make no difference whether any one of the things that A paid for cost more than €3,000 or not.