Ahern to question Burke about `Magill' letter

The Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, will question Mr Ray Burke and Fianna Fail councillors about the report of a letter contained in this month's Magill magazine. In the letter, a builder is said to have offered to obtain planning permission from Dublin County Council in exchange for a 50 per cent stake in land to be rezoned for building.

Mr Ahern said yesterday: "I want to look at that letter. I certainly wouldn't ignore that letter." He stressed that the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Burke, was not a member of Dublin County Council at the time. The question was what were "the two gents up to and what subsequently happened and when it happened".

Asked if he thought it looked compromising that Mr Michael Bailey and Mr James Gogarty had chosen to make a political contribution to Mr Burke, the Taoiseach replied: "I don't necessarily because I am not too sure who else those gentlemen would have been giving money to or what other parties they would have been contributing to at that particular time.

"I wouldn't ignore the letter. If the letter is saying that they were on some mission and they were going out to try to influence the council, which Ray Burke wasn't a member of, the question is what did they do, or what happened subsequently."

Mr Ahern said he would certainly look at the letter "and I would ask Ray in the normal terms what does he know about that. But he has told me and told the Dail that at no time did they, when giving him the money or subsequent to that, ask him to get involved in any zoning, or in any material contravention, or in any subsequent development. So his role is not involved".

The Taoiseach repeated that he would be interested to see the actual words in the letter, to see if they were trying to influence the council. "And I would check with members of the council." He had already asked members of the council months ago if they were involved in some rezoning on "that gentleman's behalf".

He added: "As far as I know, a large amount of the land that was in question then still hasn't been rezoned and still hasn't been built on. There is a question of what they were up to and I will look at that."

Asked if the new tribunal should not investigate the matter now, Mr Ahern said that if a tribunal was ever investigating these matters, the tribunal would need to investigate all rezoning matters and all planning matters.

This was about 650 acres of land in a number of batches. He did not know what happened to these batches, he continued. "I think the letter is interesting. It's interesting to know, Ray Burke apart, were they trying to influence in some way the county council and if they were, who was assisting them within the county council.

"There is one thing that I know is that Ray Burke wasn't on the council and he has told the Dail and he has told me that he didn't make any representations for these people, good, bad, or indifferent, and nobody has shown any evidence to show that is an issue. It's not an issue," Mr Ahern said.