No explanation for 'lack of paper'

Mahon tribunalA former principal officer at the Department of Finance has said he could not offer any explanation why some documentation in relation to the tax designation of Blanchardstown shopping centre was not in department files.

Tribunal counsel Pat Quinn SC questioned retired civil servant Liam Murphy about documents, some of which had appeared in Department of the Environment files and which related to the Department of Finance.

The documents included a letter to the Department of Finance in July 1993 from John Corcoran of Green Properties, the company behind the north Dublin shopping centre, and a response to the late TD Brian Lenihan in relation to the tax designation of the centre, also in July 1993.

At the time, Taoiseach Bertie Ahern was Minister for Finance.

The tribunal heard that Mr Corcoran had been lobbying the departments of finance and the environment for tax designation for his development since the introduction of the urban renewal tax designation scheme in the late 1980s, particularly after Tallaght town centre was given designation. The scheme was created to revitalise urban areas and to boost employment in the construction industry.

Correspondence on extending the scheme to Blanchardstown had been received by every minister for finance up to and including Ruairí Quinn but, Mr Murphy said, the Department of Finance was consistently against it.

Mr Quinn asked Mr Murphy if he could offer any explanation for the "lack of paper" in relation to the issue between July 1993 and January 1994 in the records of the Department of Finance. Mr Murphy said he could not. Mr Quinn also asked if Mr Murphy had accompanied Mr Ahern to a meeting with Mr Corcoran in July 1993. Mr Murphy said that he did not remember.

Mr Quinn said that in March 1994 a note in AIB recorded Cork developer Owen O'Callaghan as telling a bank official that designation for the Blanchardstown centre was no longer on the agenda. Developer Tom Gilmartin and Mr O'Callaghan were partners in a project to develop Liffey Valley shopping centre in Quarryvale, west Dublin, at the time. Mr Gilmartin had told the tribunal that Mr O'Callaghan had said he paid Mr Ahern £30,000 to prevent Blanchardstown from getting designation in 1993.

"How would Mr O'Callaghan know that tax designation was no longer on the agenda?" Mr Quinn asked Mr Murphy. "I couldn't possibly speculate," Mr Murphy replied. "As far as the Department of Finance was concerned, designation for Blanchardstown was never on the agenda."

Cross-examined in the afternoon, Mr Gilmartin said his friend Peter Kearns had told him that John Ellis TD passed on information about a high-powered meeting in Cork in 1998 involving Mr Ahern and Mr O'Callaghan, at which he had been discussed.

Mr Gilmartin said he was told it was discussed how to keep him quiet and Mr Ellis told Mr Kearns he would need to watch himself. "The question arose as to whether I could be silenced or bought and O'Callaghan ruled that out."

Colm Ó hOisín, counsel for the tribunal, accused Mr Gilmartin of having changed his story on numerous occasions and of being a man with a taste for the sensational. "If it sounds sensational, I can't help that," Mr Gilmartin replied. "Senior politicians getting £40,000 and £50,000, sensational I suppose to the uninitiated, but to me at the time it seemed to be common practice."

He denied that he told tribunal counsel that Irish Timesjournalist Frank McDonald was paid to write derogatory articles about his development at Quarryvale.

"In your mind, when somebody says something or does something you don't agree with, you automatically attribute to them the most improper and nefarious of motives," Mr Ó hOisín said.