Three men and a brown paper bag
Neil Forde sums up the Flood Tribunal
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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
Ronnie Flanagan, RUC Chief Constable
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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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