Dunlop was not worried about being caught

Mahon Tribunal: Lobbyist Mr Frank Dunlop has said he was never concerned about getting caught at the time he was paying bribes to councillors during the 1990s.

Asked at the tribunal yesterday whether he found the experience of paying bribes stressful, Mr Dunlop replied: "Not particularly".

He said he did not fear detection at the time but denied being blasé about bribing councillors.

Mr David Burke, barrister, for former Fine Gael senator Mr Liam Cosgrave, said he found Mr Dunlop's attitude "arrogant" and "impossible to believe".

Mr Dunlop said these words applied equally to Mr Burke's client and to every other person involved in the process of bribery.

In the module currently under investigation by the tribunal, the lobbyist has alleged he paid Mr Cosgrave and Councillor Tony Fox of Fianna Fáil £1,000 each.

This was in return for their support for the attempted rezoning of land owned by St Gerard's school in Bray, Co Wicklow, in 1998.

Mr Burke claimed Mr Dunlop had made a "tidy profit" by keeping the £2,000 lobbying fee he got from the school and not bribing anyone. Even if the rezoning had succeeded and Mr Dunlop had been paid a success fee, he would still only have made a mere £1,750 on the deal.

"This motion was a loser," said Mr Burke. It was "a lame horse" that was never going to win. Mr Dunlop's story "didn't add up" and his actions were not those of "a hard-nosed businessman".

Mr Burke said Mr Dunlop had treated his client as "a patsy" and "an easy target". Mr Cosgrave was a "genial and disorganised man" who didn't keep records, and Mr Dunlop knew this.

Mr Dunlop said Mr Cosgrave was certainly genial but he disagreed with the description of him as a patsy.

He also revealed that he was not being pursued by the Revenue Commissioners for unpaid tax while he was still before the tribunal.

Mr Breffni Gordon, barrister, for Mr Fox, said Mr Dunlop could be described as a "bandit" or "a gurrier in a suit" for his actions before changing his evidence to the tribunal in 2000. He asked whether he was still a liar.

Mr Dunlop said he wasn't. He denied Mr Gordon's charge that he had "dropped Mr Fox in it".

Asked whether he understood the pain and upset he had caused Mr Fox and his family, he responded that he understood this fully. However, this came from him telling the truth.

He predicted Mr Fox's counsel team would be questioning him "on many, many occasions" in future modules of the tribunal.

Earlier, the tribunal spent 20 minutes discussing the "@" symbol commonly used in Internet addresses and texting.

Legal teams for a number of councillors accused by Mr Dunlop of taking bribes have cast doubt on the authenticity of his diaries for the early 1990s because of his widespread use of this symbol in a pre-Internet and texting era, as in "[meeting with\] Liam Cosgrave @ Davenport Hotel".

Mr Burke demanded sight of Mr Dunlop's diaries so he could check the use of the symbol, which he said wasn't in widespread use at the time.

But Ms Patricia Dillon SC, for the tribunal, said that if Mr Burke was allowed to see the diaries now, everyone else would have to see them.

Judge Alan Mahon said that as far as he was concerned, the symbol was widely used at this time.

It then emerged that the tribunal has already carried out an analysis of the use of the symbol in the diaries, which is to be made available to the legal teams.

(The @ or commercial-a sign has been used in commerce for centuries, as in "four apples @ 35 cents each", but crossed over into computer usage in the 1970s.)

Mr Dunlop has completed his evidence in this module; Mr Fox is scheduled to give evidence today .