THE HIGH Court will rule next week on applications by former Fine Gael politician Liam Cosgrave and businessman Jim Kennedy for discovery of a range of documents for their separate legal bids to stop their trials on charges related to alleged corrupt payments for rezoning of lands in Carrickmines in Dublin in the 1990s.
Mr Justice John Hedigan reserved judgment on the applications yesterday to next Tuesday.
The documents sought include correspondence, notes and memos between the Director of Public Prosecutions, the National Bureau of Criminal Investigation and the Criminal Assets Bureau relating to investigations concerning both men.
They also want documentation relating to former government press secretary and lobbyist Frank Dunlop, whom the court heard is the main witness in the action against both men.
In separate judicial review proceedings to be heard later this month, both men are seeking orders halting their trials on various grounds. The trials are listed for hearing at Dublin Circuit Court in October. Both are charged in connection with the attempted rezoning of land owned by Jackson Way Properties at Carrickmines in 1992 and the successful rezoning of part of these lands in 1997. Both deny the charges.
The applications for discovery, being resisted by the DPP, arise out of the DPP’s statement of opposition to their judicial review proceedings. Yesterday, the second day of the hearing, Anthony Collins SC, for the DPP, said documentation was being sought which was not relevant to the men’s judicial review. Counsel described certain requests for material as involving “a ransacking of the State’s papers” and “a fishing expedition” in the hope something might turn up. Some requests went “beyond the scope” of the material to which they were entitled, he argued.
Philip Rahn, for Mr Cosgrave, and Declan McGrath, for Mr Kennedy, rejected those arguments and submitted the material being sought was relevant to their actions and they were entitled to it.
Mr Cosgrave (55), a former TD, senator and councillor, of Merrion Park, Blackrock, Co Dublin, is charged with receiving sums between June 12th and June 29th, 1992; on December 23rd, 1997, at Buswells Hotel, Dublin; and on October 30th, 1997, at the Davenport Hotel in Dublin.
Mr Kennedy, a father of 10, Comorant Wharf, Queensway Quay, Gibraltar, is facing 16 charges of making corrupt payments to politicians relating to rezoning motions voted on by Dublin County Council and Dún Laoghaire/Rathdown County Council concerning land in Carrickmines, Co Dublin.