Dunlop is witness in new tribunal module

Former government press secretary Frank Dunlop returns to the witness box of the planning tribunal tomorrow with new allegations about payments he made to Dublin county councillors.

Mr Dunlop is the first witness in a new module of the tribunal which will deal with lands in south Dublin controlled by brothers Christopher and Gerry Jones or their companies.

He is expected to tell the "Ballycullen and Beechhill" module that he paid £17,500 to councillors in connection with the rezoning of the brothers' lands at Ballycullen, south of Tallaght, in the early 1990s.

The brothers were "very honourable" people whose repeated attempts to have their farm at Ballycullen rezoned were frustrated until Mr Dunlop introduced them to councillors in a "relatively innocent" procedure, Mr Dunlop has already told the tribunal.

The inquiry will also examine a £12,500 payment by Christopher Jones to the late Fianna Fáil TD, Liam Lawlor. Mr Lawlor concocted an invoice in the name of Comex Trading Corporation to obtain the money, which he said was for "advice received" on the Ballycullen rezoning.

The planning history of the long-time headquarters of the Jones Group at Beechhill, Clonskeagh, will also be investigated. The group sold this site in the mid-1990s, and it was developed as a 200,000sq ft office park.

Mr Dunlop was due to give evidence in the Quarryvale module of the tribunal last November, but this was postponed after Cork developer Owen O'Callaghan obtained a court injunction preventing the hearings from going ahead. Mr O'Callaghan will try to have the module halted in a full court hearing this month.

With the tribunal's investigations into the Jackson Way rezoning at Carrickmines similarly delayed by litigation, it was decided to start a new module.