Inquiry into Bovale €9,523 contribution to Fianna Fail

The Public Offices Commission is to inquire into contributions to Fianna Fáil by the controversial building group Bovale Developments.

The company, which was condemned in the Flood report for making corrupt payments to the former minister Mr Ray Burke, gave €9,523 to Fianna Fáil in the year to March 31st, 2002, according to the latest annual return filed in the Companies Registration Office.

Persons or companies who make total contributions of more than €5,078 to a political party during a calendar year are obliged to file a return to the Public Offices Commission, which monitors donations to politicians. No return was made by Bovale.

A spokesman for the office said only one such return has been made in recent years and that the office believed the obligation is not widely understood. The only such filing to the office in recent years was from a Mr Tom Barry, who made a number of contributions to Fine Gael in the same year.

A Fianna Fáil spokesman said the only recent donation from Bovale on record at party headquarters was €3,175 (£2,500). The donation was made by Bovale at the 2001 Galway races. As it did not exceed the €5,078 threshold, it was not reported to the commission.

He said that presumably Bovale had made other donations to constituency organisations or individual politicians. Headquarters would not necessarily know about such contributions.

There was no comment from Bovale yesterday. The company, which is one of the largest land-owners in Co Dublin, is owned by Mr Michael Bailey and Mr Thomas Bailey.

Its books are currently being investigated by the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement, Mr Paul Appleby, following the filing of a notice by its auditors to the Companies Office, stating that proper books of account were not kept by the company in the past.

A premises associated with Bovale was raided by the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement in recent weeks as part of its ongoing inquiry into the company. Companies are obliged to detail political contributions when filing their annual returns to the Companies Registration Office.

The spokesman for the Public Offices Commission explained that as political parties could not know of all the contributions made by a particular person or company during a year, it was up to the donor to notify the commission in cases where the €5,078 threshold was breached by the total amount donated.

He said there had been no notifications from members of the Oireachtas that any TD or senator had received donations in excess of €500 during 2001 from Bovale. The threshold for individuals is €500. Donations to councillors are notified to the local authority concerned and not to the commission.