MURRAY CONSULTANTS should look up last Wednesday's transcripts of the Mahon tribunal and consider whether it has grounds for seeking a few quid from its former employee, Frank Dunlop.
Developer Owen O'Callaghan was in the witness box explaining how he came to pay Dunlop for his work "lobbying" for the Quarryvale development.
Dunlop furnished invoices in the name of a firm called Shefran Ltd, and the tribunal was wondering whether Shefran was a way of hiding money that was being used for bribes.
No so, said O'Callaghan. It was because he wanted to hide the payments from his then business partner, Tom Gilmartin, though he agreed that as soon as Dunlop began calling on councillors, Gilmartin would hear of it.
And there was another reason as well: Dunlop "had some arrangement with . . . Murray Consultants, the company that he worked with before, that any new clients that would come into his company, that he would probably have to give a percentage of that, I think, to Murray Consultants, or some arrangement like that . . .
"So it suited him as well to have a separate company as well for any new clients like ourselves."
Dunlop left Murrays in 1989 to set up Frank Dunlop and Associates. O'Callaghan paid Shefran £80,000 in 1991 alone.
Overall, he paid Dunlop well in excess of £1 million.
Considering the Government's determination to cut back on PR and consultancy costs, and the interest that must have accrued since 1991, maybe Murrays should give Owen, or even the Dastardly Dunlop, a call.
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