Trustees of St Luke's willing to transfer title to Fianna Fáil

THE TRUST that controls St Luke’s, Bertie Ahern’s constituency office in Drumcondra, Dublin has signalled its willingness to transfer ownership to Fianna Fáil.

In a statement last night, the trustees said they had contacted Fianna Fáil general secretary Seán Dorgan to start discussions to ensure ownership of St Luke’s passed to the party nationally.

The party’s national executive meets this evening to discuss leader Micheál Martin’s intention to restructure the Fianna Fáil branch in Mr Ahern’s former Dublin Central constituency and to transfer its assets, including the headquarters at St Luke’s, to the general secretary.

The meeting had also been due to discuss Mr Martin’s plans to expel six members, including the former taoiseach, following the publication of the planning tribunal report last week. However, all six resigned voluntarily in the past week, obviating the need for motions of expulsion.

In their statement, the trustees of St Luke’s, Joe Burke, Des Richardson and Tim Collins, said statements suggesting they intended to hold on to the property for themselves or that they were opposed to Fianna Fáil headquarters having control of it were “inaccurate and totally without foundation”.

They said Mr Ahern, before he announced his resignation from Fianna Fáil, urged them to co- operate with headquarters and to enter into “constructive and positive discussions” to bring about a situation where ownership of the property would be vested in the party nationally.

Individual members of the officer board in Dublin Central are in agreement with these discussions taking place, according to the trustees. Apart from St Luke’s, other assets in the constituency include about €50,000 on deposit in a number of accounts.

In other fallout from the tribunal report, a Labour backbencher yesterday called on Fianna Fáil TD John McGuinness to step aside as chairman of the Dáil public accounts committee over his involvement in the report.

Dublin TD Seán Kenny said Mr McGuinness should vacate the position because of an intervention he made in a rezoning decision investigated by the tribunal.

The report said Mr McGuinness lobbied former taoiseach Albert Reynolds to intervene so that a commercial right-of-way would be granted to his brother’s project at Dublin airport. His brother, businessman Michael McGuinness, gave lobbyist Frank Dunlop £10,000 cash in the knowledge that at least part of the money would be used for corrupt purposes, the report found.

In 1992, John McGuinness wrote to Mr Reynolds seeking “direct political intervention” to remove red tape preventing the project getting under way.

Speaking yesterday in the Dáil, Mr Kenny described as deplorable the Fianna Fáil deputy’s failure to address his own involvement in the report when speaking in the debate earlier yesterday.

In his contribution, Mr McGuinness said he was ashamed at the events set out in the report, at what happened with party leaders and taoisigh named in the report and “what went wrong with corruption in the State”.