Former city manager rejects 'web of corruption' claims

Mahon TribunalDublin's most senior local authority official for almost 20 years has rejected claims that a "web of corruption" operated in the city.

The former Dublin city and county manager, Mr Frank Feely, insisted that only a tiny minority of his former staff faced allegations and that references to corruption in local government were overused.

Mr Feely said he had worked in local government for 45 years, 30 of them at a senior level. In this time over 25,000 staff had passed through his hands, including a wide variety of people and professions. More than 99.9 per cent of these people were of the highest integrity, and there had never been an allegation against any of them, he said.

At the time of his retirement, in 1996, 12,000 officials worked for the local authority in Dublin, and just one of these (George Redmond) had faced an allegation of corruption.

As for elected representatives, there had been no allegations he knew of against the members of Dublin Corporation and only a few against county councillors.

Mr Tom Gilmartin himself had said that a "small number" of people had given the rest a bad name, he pointed out. Words such as "corruption" were being "thrown around like snuff at a wake", he said, when the reality was that staff worked to the highest levels of integrity.

"I really do feel concerned when I hear statements about a web of corruption," he said.

Earlier in his evidence Mr Feely again defended his handling of Mr Gilmartin's allegations. The tribunal heard earlier this week that Mr Feely told the minister for the environment, Mr Flynn, about the developer's claims but did not directly inform gardaí.