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18 March 1999 Edition

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Workers in struggle: Three men and a brown paper bag

Neil Forde sums up the Flood Tribunal




The tribunal, the whole tribunal and nothing but the tribunal. Daily news reports on the Flood Tribunal have filled the news bulletins over the past three months. However for many following the events at Dublin Castle it is hard to get a grip on just what is going on.

The allegations on which the Tribunal is based revolve around five people. On the one hand there are three people against whom very serious allegations have been made. They are former Fianna Fail ministers Ray Burke and Padraig Flynn and George Redmond the now retired Assistant Manager Dublin City and County Council.

Then there are those who have made the allegations. They are James Gogarty and Tom Gilmartin.

Gogarty's £40,000


James Gogarty is a former employee of a Guernsey based company called Joseph Murphy Structural Engineers (JMSE). Gogarty has fallen out with JMSE over what he claims is their failure to pay him an adequate pension. Because of this he has revealed a series of damming allegations about his dealings with Ray Burke, JMSE and a house building company called Bovale Developments.

Central to Gogarty's allegations is a meeting in Ray Burke's House in June 1989. At the meeting it was alleged that Ray Burke was given £40,000 in a brown paper bag by Gogarty on behalf of JMSE and £40,000 by Michael Bailey a director of Bovale Developments.

JMSE owned 734 acres of agricultural land in North Dublin. Together with Bovale Developments they planned to develop these lands. The only problem was getting them rezoned by Dublin County Council.

The money allegedly paid to Burke was to secure the change in zoning status of the JMSE land from agricultural to industrial and residential use. Ray Burke admits that the meeting did take place and that he did receive £30,000 in cash. He denies the money was a bribe for securing Fianna Fail support in the rezoning application. Michael Bailey agrees he was present but says no money was handed over by him. Ray Burke has since resigned his post as minister and as a TD.

Bailey's £50,000


Gogarty also alleges that in September 1989, Michael Bailey gave him a cheque for £50,000 during a meeting at the Skylon Hotel in Drumcondra. Bailey was concerned about Gogarty's dispute with his employers. He gave him the money and told him to ``forget about the Ray Burke thing''. The cheque given to James Gogarty was never cashed and is Exhibit A at the Tribunal.

As well as the cheque Gogarty has also produced a letter written to him by Michael Bailey explaining how he could get planning permission granted by Dublin County Council. The letter explains how he could garner support ``across the political divide'' for crucial votes.

George Redmond is the second named public official against whom James Gogarty has made allegations. Redmond retired form his job in Dublin Corporation and County council in 1989. By then he had spent ten years in control of planning in County Dublin. Gogarty denys claims printed in one newspaper that he gave Redmond £25,000 in cash in the lobby of Clontarf Castle Hotel. He has though outlined in his evidence other payments made to Redmond for ``planning favours''. According to Gogarty's evidence at the Tribunal George Redmond sought 10% of the savings JMSE made from reductions in planning application levies made by Dublin County Council on the company. The savings on the these levies ran into tens of thousands of pounds. Gogarty also claims that after his retirement Mr Gogarty believed that he would be hired by JMSE as a consultant for the company.

Redmond's £300,000


Redmond was arrested last February by Customs officials in Dublin Airport. He had been on a trip to the Isle Of Man and returned with £300,000 in cash and bank drafts in his possession. Redmond told Gardai the money was to pay his legal bills at the Tribunal. He has had legal representatives there nearly every day and the costs of a senior counsel top £1,000 a day at the Tribunal. George Redmond has yet to give evidence at the Tribunal.

He did give an interview to a Sunday Newspaper on 14 February. He claimed then that ``I don't have a bank account in the Isle of Man. The Tribunal has sought details from 14 banks and financial institutions in Dublin. Over the past 20 years he has had over 20 bank accounts in financial institutions, both in Dublin and in offshore accounts.

Flynn's £50,000


Padraig Flynn is currently the 26 County's EU Commissioner. In 1989 he was visited at his ministerial office by property Developer Tom Gilmartin. Gilmartin has alleged in an affivdavit to the Flood Tribunal that he gave £50,000 to Padgraig Flynn as donation for Fianna Fail. Fianna Fail have no record of ever receiving such a donation. At the time Flynn was one of the party's treasurers.

Ray Burke was also the recipient of another large donation intended For Fianna Fail which was never received by the party. Again in June 1989 at the same time of the Gogarty meeting Burke received £30,000 in a cheque from a company called Rennicks, a subsidiary of Fitzwilton. Burke only gave Fianna Fail £10,000, one third of the actual donation.

Gilmartin has claimed that Padraig Flynn told him to make the £50,000 cheque out to cash and ``just leave it on the desk''. At the time Gilmartin was involved in two property development projects. One in Quarryvale which is now the recently opened Liffey Valley centre and the second was a plan for a shopping mall development on Dublin's Batchelor's Walk and Ormond Quay.

Late Late Testimony


He had meetings with Bertie Ahern, Liam Lawlor and the late Brain Lenihan to discuss his two projects which eventually came to nothing. Gilmartin sold his part of the Quarryvale land to Owen O'Callaghan who built the Liffey Valley centre.

The £50,000 payment to Gilmartin had been well publicised before the events at the tribunal in recent weeks. Padraig Flynn appeared as a guest of Gay Byrne on the Late Late Show in mid January 1999. As well as telling the audience how difficult it was maintaining three homes on a tax free annual salary of £140,000 Flynn claimed that Gilmartin was now ill as was his wife. By the end of the show Flynn had phoned back to the station to apologise for his comments about Gilmartin's health.

Padraig Flynn's comments prompted Gilmartin who up until then had made clear he would not be giving evidence to the Tribunal to change his mind. Whether he will is unclear but he did make public his dealings and contacts with leading Fianna Fail politicians displaying a level of access to important deceions makers that would be denied the ordinary citizen.

There are still months of deliberations to come at the Flood Tribunal and the end outcome is not at all clear. What the Tribunal has shown is glimpse of the seemier side of political life in Ireland. It has shown in just how political decisions are taken and how democratic structures are subverted.

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