End-of-term atmosphere as inquiry winds up until new year

More than two years after it was set up, the Flood tribunal is finally to make a long-awaited "opening statement" regarding its…

More than two years after it was set up, the Flood tribunal is finally to make a long-awaited "opening statement" regarding its investigations so far into planning corruption, the chairman, Mr Justice Flood, has announced.

On the last day of public sittings this side of the millennium, Mr Justice Flood announced that tribunal lawyers would make a public statement on their work before the end of January. This will outline "in general terms" the work of the tribunal to date, and the lines of inquiry currently being followed.

The current strand of investigations, into the allegations made by Mr James Gogarty, will be completed after the tribunal restarts on January 18th, according to the chairman. It is expected this module will be completed within a fortnight.

Thereafter, the tribunal would sit in "discrete" or separate phases, each of which would be preceded by an opening statement, he said. This is the procedure followed by the Moriarty tribunal, with which the slower-moving Flood tribunal has been unfavourably compared.

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The next module, expected to begin as early as February, is expected to deal with the explosive allegations made by property developer Mr Tom Gilmartin, who claims he paid £50,000 to the former European Commissioner, Mr Padraig Flynn. Many of those who figure in Mr Gilmartin's other allegations are still active in politics and public life and the political fallout from these hearings could therefore be enormous.

Mr Justice Flood yesterday blamed the delay in completing the Gogarty strand of investigations on the failure of certain witnesses to furnish statements. Developer Mr Tom Bailey and a number of other witnesses refused to submit statements and as a result their evidence took far longer than expected.

There was a distinct end-of-term feeling to yesterday's hearing, carried out before a near-empty public gallery. Far more interesting than the evidence being heard was the bizarre revelation, in yesterday's Examiner, that Mr Joseph Murphy snr, the millionaire founder of JMSE, has lived under an assumed name for 50 years. Mr Murphy was born John Murphy in 1917, but changed his name shortly after he moved to England in the mid-1940s. The news could have implications for the tribunal, which is currently trawling for bank accounts Mr Murphy may hold in Ireland.

The day was dominated by the efforts of the Murphy camp to recover the ground lost last week, when the tribunal revealed two bookkeeping references linking the payment to Mr Ray Burke to "planning permission" and "land enhancement".

Given Mr Gogarty's allegation that Mr Burke was bribed to help get planning permission on the Murphy-owned land in north Dublin, the references are highly damning for the company.

Mr John Bates was the auditor who attributed the "30,000 payment that ultimately went to Mr Burke" to "enhancement expenditure" when he checked the company books in 1991. Yesterday he said he was unable to find out from the company or its accountants what the money was paid for. He deduced that as the sum was paid by a land company controlled by Mr Murphy, it must relate to lands. And, Mr Bates then reasoned, it must have been used to "enhance" these lands.

So Mr Bates, rather than leaving the entry blank or putting in a question mark, made the reference to "land enhancement". "It never occurred to me that the money may have been paid to a politician," he added.

The explanation was visibly underwhelming. Mr Des O'Neill SC, for the tribunal, asked why the witness made an entry which he knew to be wrong. Mr Bates denied this.

Mr Brian O'Moore SC, for Mr Gogarty, went further, accusing Mr Bates of "burying" the payment in the books to hide the bribe to Mr Burke. Mr Bates again denied this, but under heavy cross-examination, he revealed that in 1991 he informed three company executives, including Mr Murphy jnr, of the existence of "unvouched expenses" for £30,000.

You could hear another nail going into the JMSE coffin. How much could these companies know about the payment to Mr Burke, and how many executives could be involved in the preparation of the money, yet when the allegations surfaced in the newspapers JMSE knew nothing and denied all knowledge?

On top of all the other indicators, here was clear evidence that three top JMSE executives knew there was some sort of question mark about the money. Yet the company never once made a statement saying it knew that a payment had been made - whether with its permission or not - before Mr Burke gave the Dail details of the payment in September 1997.

Earlier, the former financial controller of JMSE, Mr Tim O'Keeffe, was equally unconvincing in explaining away the reference in one of his financial documents to "planning permission". Mr O'Keeffe says the reference did not apply to the £30,000, although any common-sense reading of the document would seem to indicate that it did.

Mr O'Keeffe ended by agreeing with Mr O'Neill that he had been confused in his evidence but had become "unconfused".