Ex-minister's link to £15,000 planning payment said to be 'typing error'

An indication that £15,000 was due to former minister Mr Ray Burke from a Brennan and McGowan company was the result of a "typing error", the tribunal has heard.

In June 1974, the Sunday Independent discovered a document which linked a payment to Mr Burke from Dublin Airport Industrial Estates Ltd under the heading "planning".

However, Mr Hugh Owens, whose accountancy firm prepared the document, said his secretary had made a "typing error". The reference to planning beside Mr Burke's name was "total nonsense". It should have referred to his services as "estate agent" to the company.

Mr Owens said that the phones had been "hopping" on the day after the report appeared. He had been contacted by Mr Brennan and Mr McGowan, among others. He went to the Companies Office and found the document referred to in the article.

He contacted Mr Michael O'Hanrahan, the solicitor for Dublin Airport Industrial Estates. Mr O'Hanrahan has already told the tribunal that he removed the document from the Companies Office file and destroyed it.

Mr Pat Hanratty SC, for the tribunal, said it seemed unlikely that the entry on the document was the result of a typing error. Such an error would have had at least three stages, with the omission of certain words and the addition of others. "I do not accept that. What I wrote to the garda∅ is the true position", the witness replied.

Mr Hanratty described a subsequent version of the document, which referred to Mr Burke as an "estate agent" as a "retrospective attempt to cover up an awkward entry".

Mr Owens pointed out that the sale of the lands owned by Dublin Airport Industrial Estates had fallen through. Mr Burke, therefore, had not been paid any money.

Mr John Caldwell, the Dublin solicitor who failed to appear before the tribunal last month, is scheduled to give evidence today. He agreed to appear after the tribunal took the matter of his non-appearance to the High Court earlier this month.

The tribunal wants to question Mr Caldwell about allegations of payments to politicians regarding a number of rezonings, and also in relation to his work on behalf of Brennan and McGowan.

Mr Caldwell, a former partner in Binchys solicitors, was scheduled to appear yesterday, but his evidence was delayed by Mr Owens's evidence, which took longer than expected.