TWO DIRECTORS of Joseph Murphy Structural Engineers Ltd (JMSE) have brought a Supreme Court appeal in a bid to avoid a “potentially enormous” legal costs bill arising from the planning tribunal’s finding that they hindered and obstructed it during its inquiries.
Because of the findings of hindrance and obstruction, which are rejected by the JMSE appellants, the tribunal in November 2004 refused to grant Joseph Murphy jnr, Frank Reynolds and JMSE their costs of participating in the tribunal over 163 hearing days.
They appealed that decision to the High Court but, in February 2006, Mr Justice Thomas Smyth rejected their challenge, both to the findings of hindrance and obstruction and to the tribunal’s refusal of their legal costs.
They have now appealed that High Court decision to a five-judge Supreme Court, presided over by Ms Justice Susan Denham.
The appeal is by Joseph Murphy jnr, Ashley House, Batterstown, Co Meath, Frank Reynolds, Drumree, Pelletstown, Co Meath, and JMSE Ltd against the Flood/Mahon planning tribunal and the State. Mr Murphy and Mr Reynolds are, respectively, the chairman and managing director of JMSE.
The case arises after the tribunal, in reports of 2002 and 2004, found the applicants obstructed and hindered it by giving a false account of relevant events and falsely constructing an untrue alibi.
It found Mr Murphy failed to give a truthful account of the circumstances in which it is alleged he attended a meeting at the home of former minister Ray Burke in June 1989, at which he allegedly handed Mr Burke a sum of money not less than £30,000. It also found Mr Murphy failed to give a truthful account of his dealings with developer Michael Bailey.
The tribunal also found that Mr Murphy failed to give a truthful account of circumstances in which he allegedly came to pay Dublin city manager George Redmond not less than £12,246 for devising a strategy that resulted in service charges and levies for a development at Forrest Road being fixed at a 1983 level. It also found he failed to give a truthful account of the circumstances in which he allegedly came to pay Mr Redmond £15,000 at Clontarf Castle Hotel.
In relation to Mr Reynolds, it found he failed to give a truthful account of his involvement in the assembly of funds paid to Mr Burke by JMSE or of his dealings with Mr Bailey and had also falsely ascribed to James Gogarty a role in the payment of monies to Mr Burke, which Mr Reynolds knew to be untrue.
It also found that Mr Reynolds failed to acknowledge he had attended a meeting at Clontarf Castle where £15,000 was allegedly paid to Mr Redmond by Mr Murphy.
The High Court in 2006 ruled that the tribunal had power to make the findings of obstruction and hindrance and was entitled to take those findings into account when refusing costs.
In submissions yesterday for JMSE, Michael Cush SC, argued that the tribunal had no such power to make the findings of obstruction and hindrance and, if it had, then the relevant provisions of the Tribunals of Inquiry (Evidence) Acts were unconstitutional.
Mr Cush also argued that the tribunal had no power to link its findings of obstruction with its decision to refuse his clients their legal costs of appearing before the inquiry. That exposed his clients to “potentially enormous” costs which they had involuntarily incurred.
The issue to be determined was whether a finding of corruption could lead to the imposition of a liability. It was his case it could not and that the tribunal’s refusal of costs was unconstitutional.
The tribunal will set out its arguments when the appeal resumes, on a date yet to be fixed.
