Octogenarian who confounded the pundits

You have to go back to Eamon de Valera to find an octogenarian who has featured so prominently in Irish public life as James Gogarty.

But whereas Dev spent a lifetime in the pursuit of power and limelight, Mr Gogarty (81), a retired building company executive whose allegations effectively gave birth to the planning tribunal, has had publicity thrust upon him only towards the end of his life.

For a man who says his social life consisted entirely of his family and who never before came to public prominence, Mr Gogarty has performed creditably in his first week in the witness box.

Disoriented and hard of hearing at first, his performance improved through the week, as he grew accustomed to being in the witness box. His voice grew stronger even as the chairman's, Mr Justice Flood, weakened with laryngitis.

Mr Gogarty has a heart condition and is diabetic. He walks slowly and painfully with the aid of a stick. As the legal wrangling rumbled on at various points during the week, he was forced to stand up and pace the margins of the hall to improve his circulation.

He clearly has a countryman's love of storytelling, which he combines with an impressive grasp of detail. Most of all, though, there is the burning resentment at what he feels is the failure of his employer for 20 years, Joseph Murphy Structural Engineering, to agree the pension that would secure the future of his family.

This evident desire to deliver his side of the story gives the lie to those supposedly "well-placed sources" which repeatedly told some Sunday newspapers, even up to last weekend, that the tribunal's star witness was going to back out of giving evidence.

Mr Gogarty is neither young enough nor beautiful enough to become a hero in today's world. By his own admission, he is no saint, having been aware of, and involved in, business activities that were at the very least questionable. "If I did wrong," he told the tribunal on Thursday, "I am ready to take my place in the queue to pay for it."

By all accounts, as a long-time managing director of JMSE, he was one of the company's most effective bosses. And no one has ever suggested you could get anywhere in the rough and tumble of the construction business without being tough.

Lawyers for JMSE and the developer, Mr Michael Bailey, will undoubtedly get to tell a different version of events when they have their chance to cross-examine the witness shortly, but for the moment Mr Gogarty is having his brief moment of fame.

And there was much in his testimony that would strike a chord with the public, particularly the older generation. Mr Gogarty's evidence depicted a life of toil and thrift, as he struggled to find a place in life and later to provide for his wife and children.

Having left school with an Inter Cert, he continued studying on and off at night and eventually got a degree in engineering from UCD, nearly 20 years later. While serving as an auxiliary Garda, he would often pound the beat until 2 a.m., then attend lectures the following morning.

His descriptions of work in the 1950s and 1960s were straight from a John Hinde postcard, as country builders descended on Dublin to create optimistic housing estates around the city.

Mr Gogarty's testimony was peppered with references to colleagues now long gone, as in "Tony was a very nice man, oh a decent man, the Lord 'a' mercy upon him". As with many old people, landmarks now long gone, such as his reference to the Gaiety Theatre near the Toby Jug pub and Sunbeam Wolsey factory dominate his mental map of Dublin.

There were swipes at "blackguards" and "chancers" that spoke of old enmities. And frequent side-references to his drinking cups of tea, and the drinking capacities of some of his builder colleagues, such as "it was no bother to him to go through a bottle of brandy, you know".

Notwithstanding these colourful but admittedly irrelevant references, Mr Gogarty did, by and large, stick to the content of his affidavit. His difficulties arranging a pension, and the fact that he remained in harness to JMSE well into his 70s will resonate with anyone who has worries about their security in old age.

If he continues in similar fashion next week, we can expect to hear in detail about his sensational allegation about payments to the former Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Ray Burke.

Mr Gogarty will also give evidence on his allegation that the former assistant Dublin City and County Manager, Mr George Redmond, received a payment of £15,000 from the Murphy group in 1989. And he will allege there was a campaign of intimidation against him, including late-night telephone threats and the firing of a shot in 1991 through his then home in Clontarf.