Cowen decision 'went against advice'

Minister Brian Cowen went against the advice of his officials in the Department of Transport in deciding on an application for a right of way across State lands near Dublin airport which assisted a business consortium with a commercial development, the Mahon tribunal has heard.

John Loughrey, the former secretary general of the Department of Transport, said officials had recommended in January 1994 that the right of way to land owned by the consortium should be granted on condition that it had first secured planning permission.

However, he accepted that this requirement for planning permission had been dropped after "a ministerial intervention".

Mr Loughrey said there was nothing wrong with Mr Cowen making such a decision.

He said Mr Cowen had decided in principle in autumn 1993 that there was a business case for granting the right of way to the Cargobridge consortium which owned 24 acres of land near the airport.

Mr Loughrey said that this had not been a "solo run" by the Minister but that he had been reflecting the merits of the Cargobridge proposals which were also acknowledged by other senior politicians, including those in other parties.

He said that officials may have been unaware of this change of policy by Mr Cowen when they made their recommendation the following January.

Mr Loughrey said the officials may also have not known of the "chicken and egg" situation whereby Dublin County Council believed that Cargobridge would have to secure the right of way before it would deal with a planning application.

"Once the Minister decided in principle that this could go ahead, the idea of somehow blocking them with a sort of contrived, 'you can't get planning because we would not get you the right of way', seems to be fanciful to say the least," he said.

Mr Loughrey said he did not believe there had been "a Pauline conversion" overnight in the department on the Cargobridge issue and that the files showed an evolution in thinking.

The tribunal heard that in December 1994, shortly before he went out of office, Mr Cowen had written to the Aer Rianta chairman, Noel Hanlon, about the Cargobridge issue.

Mr Loughrey said the Minister wanted to make sure Aer Rianta, which opposed the granting of the right of way, "delivered on his intent".

The tribunal heard that the lobbyist Frank Dunlop, who was advising Cargobridge, had secured a copy of Mr Cowen's letter within days of it being sent.

Mr Loughrey said that the Minister may have asked his private secretary to give the letter to Mr Dunlop, but that the lobbyist "knew his way around government with great adroitness".

Meanwhile, a former senior civil servant in the Department of Transport, Brendan Toomey, said Aer Rianta had suggested to him that a mystery company which owned part of Cargobridge was "one of the intermediate companies" reputed to be involved in the purchase of the Johnston, Mooney & O'Brien site in Ballsbridge.

Mr Toomey said he did not know why John Burke, the company secretary of Aer Rianta, had mentioned this or the reasons behind it.