Ex-AIB banker 'never told' about £10,000 payment

A FORMER AIB banker has said that Cork developer Owen O'Callaghan never told him a £10,000 expense put down to the Quarryvale development was actually paid to former councillor Colm McGrath.

Eddie Kay, former manager at corporate AIB in Ballsbridge, said if he had been told that the payment was for a politician, he would have been "most unhappy".

He said he took rumours of corruption in planning with a "grain of salt" and "never envisaged" that money earmarked for lobbying expenses for the Quarryvale project would be spent on payments to councillors.

AIB had lent Luton-based developer Tom Gilmartin £8.5 million to buy land for the Quarryvale project, now the Liffey Valley Shopping Centre, in 1990. It became a stakeholder in the project, along with Cork developer Owen O'Callaghan, when Mr Gilmartin failed to repay the loan on time. Mr Kay often sanctioned expenses paid out for the Quarryvale project.

Counsel for the tribunal, Patricia Dillon SC, highlighted a letter from Mr O'Callaghan to Mr Kay in December 1991 outlining expenses incurred. Included were two payments of £10,000 with a note beside them saying: "I will explain on Friday". Ms Dillon said Mr O'Callaghan would say that one of the figures, paid in October 1991, was a payment to councillor Colm McGrath.

"If he had told me one of these payments was a payment to Colm McGrath or to any other politician, the alarm bells would certainly have rung in my head," Mr Kay said. "I would not have considered it appropriate. I certainly wouldn't have approved it off my own bat." He said Mr O'Callaghan probably told him the payments were for "something innocuous" and he did not realise Mr McGrath received £10,000 until he read tribunal correspondence.

"It probably wouldn't have been a huge surprise if Mr O'Callaghan had made a political donation out of his own resources, but if I established it had been made out of an account in which the bank had a shareholding, I would have been very surprised," he said.

Lobbyist Frank Dunlop was employed by Mr O'Callaghan to promote the Quarryvale project and was paid £80,000 in the space of three weeks at about the time of the local elections and a crucial Quarryvale rezoning vote, the tribunal was told.

The payments were made to his company, Shefran Ltd. Mr Kay acknowledged the bank did not have copies of the first three invoices to Shefran Ltd.

He said Mr O'Callaghan told him they were payments to Mr Dunlop for lobbying expenses when he questioned the outgoing.

He was aware that the local elections were happening at about the time the payments were made and that the Quarryvale rezoning vote was also happening, he said.

"If you're asking me did I connect the payments to Shefran to those two events, the answer is no," he said.

Asked if he had ever instigated meetings with politicians to further the Quarryvale project, Mr Kay said he couldn't have, because he didn't know any. He also said he was never suspicious that money was paid to councillors to ensure the land was rezoned.

"I don't think anyone at that stage was aware of what appeared to have happened," Mr Kay said.