Tribunal to study Fitzwilton payment to Burke

The planning tribunal is to start public hearings in September into the £30,000 payment by Sir Anthony O'Reilly's Fitzwilton group to former Fianna Fáil minister Ray Burke in June 1989, The Irish Times has learned.

The inquiry will seek to establish if Mr Burke performed any favours for Fitzwilton while he was minister for communications, and is likely to examine the success of companies linked to Sir Anthony O'Reilly in obtaining MMDS rebroadcasting licences awarded at this time.

Both Fitzwilton and Mr Burke have said that the payment, which was made by cheque through a Fitzwilton subsidiary, Rennicks Manufacturing, was a legitimate political contribution.

The inquiry will also seek to establish who the payment was intended for.

Fianna Fáil has said it was expecting a donation from Fitzwilton before the general election in June 1989. When the company said it had given money to Mr Burke, party fundraisers contacted the minister, who presented them with a draft for £10,000.

When they asked for the balance, Mr Burke told officials: "That's as much as you're getting. Good luck."

The tribunal has already found that Mr Burke received two corrupt payments, from JMSE and Oliver Barry, around this time.

Earlier this year the retired politician spent more than four months in jail on tax charges. He is already facing legal bills of more than €10 million from his previous involvement with the tribunal.

The decision by the tribunal to investigate the Fitzwilton payment 16 years after it happened and eight years after the inquiry was set up comes as a surprise. Tribunal lawyers had given no indication in recent years of their intention to proceed with public hearings, and the inquiry is due to wind up in 2007.

The Fitzwilton payment was first revealed by Magill magazine in May 1998. The controversy it provoked led to a significant widening of the terms of reference of the tribunal.

Businessmen Robin Rennicks and Paul Power travelled to Mr Burke's home in Swords on June 7th, 1989, to make the payment. Mr Rennicks was a director of Fitzwilton, to which he had recently sold his sign-making company, Rennicks Manufacturing.

At a short meeting in the house, Briargate, the two men handed over a £30,000 cheque, made out to cash, on behalf of Fitzwilton.

Burke later passed on £10,000 of this money to Fianna Fáil, but kept the rest for his own purposes.

Fitzwilton was a regular donor to political parties, but normally the company gave its money to Fianna Fáil headquarters through an established conduit. This was the first time money was not given to the party's election fund, and the first time it was paid through a minister. It was unusual, too, that the cheque was made out to cash.

As minister for communications, Burke was responsible for issuing licences for the operation of the MMDS television transmitter system.

Of the 29 licences granted in 1989, a majority went to companies linked to Sir Anthony O'Reilly.

The licensees were supposed to have a legal monopoly on television signals, but illegal operators spoiled this in many areas of the State.

Burke promised, in a letter to one of the O'Reilly-linked companies, to apply "the full rigours of the law" to illegal operators, but no action was taken against them for many years afterwards.