PD Senator offered £30,000 to vote for development

Progressive Democrats Senator Tom Morrissey has told the Mahon tribunal that he was offered £30,000 to vote for a planning proposal in the 1990s.

Mr Morrissey said he specifically recollected being offered an inducement for this amount, which he described as enormous at the time and large even by today's standards. At the time, he represented Fine Gael on Dublin County Council.

In accordance with tribunal practice, Mr Morrissey did not name the proposed development at yesterday's session, but was asked to write details for the tribunal on a piece of paper.

Mr Morrissey told the tribunal he had heard stories about inducements paid to other councillors but had no direct evidence. He did not feel the donations he had received were inducements cap-able of influencing him, though he could not speak for his colleagues on the council.

He was the first of up to 50 politicians who the tribunal intends to call in its investigation of the rezoning of Monarch Properties' land at Cherrywood in south Dublin in the 1990s. The company made payments totalling over £500,000 in connection with this process, almost half of it in donations to politicians.

Monarch paid Mr Morrissey £500 in 1994 and £750 in 1996, the tribunal heard yesterday. Richard Lynn, the project manager of the Cherrywood scheme, met the politician on at least six occasions, his expenses records appear to indicate.

Mr Morrissey, who supported the rezoning of Monarch's land in the crucial vote in 1993, said he did not feel tied to vote in a particular way because of the support he received. "I will be determined and resolute in saying it did not affect me in carrying out my duties as a councillor as independently as I could."

Patricia Dillon SC, for the tribunal, pointed out that the witness had repeatedly changed his position on the zoning of the lands in council votes. At a meeting in 1992, he voted against a motion proposing only low-density housing on the land but then supported a later motion permitting only two houses per hectare. This situation represented a disaster for Monarch, she pointed out.

However, in 1993, he voted with the majority to allow 10 houses per hectare on Monarch's land but only two houses per hectare on the rest of the land in the Carrickmines Valley.

Asked to explain these changes, Mr Morrissey agreed he had not been consistent. Although he could not indicate the precise factors involved, he believed he would have been influenced by what members said at the meetings. Many officials, he pointed out, had done U-turns and he was entitled to change his mind on issues.

He agreed that Monarch was the only landowner that benefited from the 1993 vote but said this was never his motive.

He "categorically" denied seeking financial support from anyone, but said he was not surprised when Mr Lynn made the donations on behalf of Monarch. "I didn't see it in relation to what I might have done or what I would do in the future."

Mr Morrissey said Michael Smith, who was minister for the environment in the 1990s, was not "forward-thinking enough" because of his opposition to the provision of more zoned land.

It was "amusing in the extreme" for Mr Smith to have claimed that Dublin councillors were turning planning into a "debased currency" when it took 10 years to develop land. This was one of the reasons people now had such long commutes to their homes, he said.