'Sky was the limit to his boasting'

Mr Sam Stanley has described how businessman Mr Jim Kennedy promised to make him a millionaire when George Redmond rezoned the Carrickmines Valley, the tribunal has heard.

Mr Kennedy claimed Redmond would "colour the map" of the Carrickmines Valley by changing its zoning from agricultural to residential, Mr Stanley told the tribunal yesterday. He said Mr Kennedy told him this in 1991.

When it was put to Mr Stanley that Redmond retired as Dublin county manager in June 1989, Mr Stanley said Mr Kennedy had told him the council was "in bits and they needed George back".

At the time, Mr Stanley held a 20 per cent stake in Paisley Park Investments, the offshore vehicle used to purchase 108 acres in Carrickmines. Companies owned by Mr Kennedy and the solicitor Mr John Caldwell shared the remaining equity.

Mr Kennedy would become boastful in pub discussions, said Mr Stanley. While he wasn't a drinking man, "the sky was the limit to his boasting" after a few pints. Mr Stanley said he met Mr Kennedy in the latter's amusement arcade in Westmoreland Street, where he was offered £50,000 in an envelope" to "get out" of Paisley Park. However, his lawyers described this as "a preposter- ously low price," as Mr Kennedy had previously promised Mr Stanley £1 million for his work in acquiring the land.

Mr Stanley recalled that by the 1990s, many of the people who had dealt with Mr Kennedy in the 1980s were no longer "on the scene". By then, Mr Kennedy had "dug a very deep hole for himself". He had asked the seller of the Carrickmines land, Mr Bob Tracey, for £50,000 to "shake down" the planning process, and Mr Tracey and his brother Jack had reported this to the Garda. The Fraud Squad had interviewed Mr Kennedy.

"The divil himself wouldn't go into partnership with Jim Kennedy," the witness remarked.

While the dissolution of Paisley Park in 1992 effectively excluded him from ownership of the land, Mr Stanley said he believed there was an "ulterior motive" for this action. At this time, "the knives were out" for Mr Kennedy, and his name "didn't have an attractive hue". The failure of Paisley Park's attempt to rezone the Carrickmines land in 1992 showed that his name had to be "removed from the situation" if there was to be any hope of getting a rezoning in the future.

Mr Kennedy said he asked a councillor at this time about rezoning prospects and he was told: "Jim Kennedy will never get an inch of land in Dublin again. After Carrickmines and Airlie Stud [in Lucan], Jim Kennedy will be on a slow boat to China."