Dealer tells of Lawlor Mercedes sale

A Dublin garage owner has said there was "nothing incorrect" about his sale of a top-of-the-range Mercedes car to Mr Liam Lawlor in the late 1980s.

But Mr Gerard Brady said he had to "chase" Mr Lawlor for full payment of the £62,500 purchase price of the 5.5 litre Mercedes 560SEL he sold to the TD in January 1988.

According to Mr Brady, he had to ring Mr Lawlor about 10 times before the outstanding £25,000 was paid in February 1989.

Mr Brady was interviewed by gardaí in June 1988 after developer Mr Tom Gilmartin alleged that Mr Lawlor was withholding the money because he had done a planning favour for the garage owner.

Yesterday, Mr Brady said he didn't tell gardaí about the outstanding balance. Asked why, he said he had "no reason" for thinking that he wasn't going to be paid. Although he couldn't recall what he told the gardaí, "I would have told them the truth, whatever the truth was". He couldn't recall whether he showed them his books.

At the time Mr Lawlor expressed an interest in buying the Mercedes, there were very few such models in the country, he explained.

Mr Lawlor traded in his existing Mercedes 280SE for £20,000, and wrote out a cheque for £17,500, leaving a balance of £25,000. The two men made a verbal "gentleman's agreement" about the payment of the balance.

Mr Brady said he never expected to have to wait 12 months for payment. He found it difficult to reach Mr Lawlor as he only had his mobile phone number. However, he never felt he wasn't going to be paid.

He told Mr Hugh O'Neill SC, for Mr Gilmartin, that he got planning permission for his garage on the Navan Road in Castleknock around 1988. He didn't have any contact with Mr Lawlor about this matter before or since.

Mr Pat Quinn SC, for the tribunal, pointed out that Mr Brady had given three different figures for the purchase price on different occasions.

Whereas the amount is stated as £62,500 in his statement, it appears as £67,836 on an invoice discovered by the tribunal, and as £75,000 on an unsigned statement prepared for Mr Brady at the behest of Mr Lawlor in 1999. The amount outstanding and the trade-in value of Mr Lawlor's old car also varied in the different versions.

Mr Quinn pointed out that at the time of the sale, the price of an average family car was about £10,000.

He also pointed out that the sales book of Brady's garage records the sale price of Mr Lawlor's car as £42,500, not £62,500.

The witness told Mr O'Neill that the amounts given in his statement were the "figures in my head". He didn't set any definite date with Mr Lawlor for full payment.

Mr Lawlor, who also denies there was anything untoward about the purchase of the car, was in Prague yesterday and will cross-examine Mr Brady today.

Earlier, the tribunal heard that notes of a meeting about planning corruption between the former minister for the environment, Mr Pádraig Flynn, and his departmental secretary, Mr Tom Troy, had gone missing.

Mr Brendan O'Donoghue, who took over from Mr Troy in 1990, said he found his predecessor's notes in the drawer of his desk and kept them safely for a few years. When the Department centralised its filing system, he handed them over.

However, a comprehensive search by the Department has failed to locate the notes.

Mr Mark Pery Knox Gore, a solicitor who worked for a firm that helped acquire properties for Mr Gilmartin's project at Bachelor's Walk, told the tribunal he disagreed with the developer's evidence about his contacts with Government ministers.

Mr Pery Knox Gore's contemporaneous notes show he had a chance encounter in the street with Mr Gilmartin on February 6th, 1989. Mr Gilmartin, these notes record, told him that he had met four Government ministers - Mr Ahern, Mr Flynn, Mr Burke and Mr Reynolds - three days previously. However, in his evidence, Mr Gilmartin told the tribunal this note was not accurate.

He might have told Mr Pery Knox Gore he had met a minister, but not four of them. Asked yesterday about Mr Gilmartin's assertion, Mr Pery Knox Gore said he disagreed. He was satisfied that his notes were accurate.