A former car salesman has told the trial of the former Dublin assistant city and county manager, Mr George Redmond, that he now recalls paying £10,000 to Dublin County Council for a right of way, despite his earlier denials.
On the fourth day of Mr Redmond's trial on corruption charges, Mr Brendan Fassnidge told Dublin Circuit Criminal Court he wanted to correct his earlier claims and said his mind had been "jogged" overnight after "having given it a lot of thought".
The former TD Mr Liam Lawlor told the jury that he and other Dublin County Council members had been briefed by Mr Fassnidge about his difficulty in getting planning permission for a petrol station on the Lucan bypass which led to him proposing a Section 4 motion which was adopted and directed Mr Redmond to grant permission for the project.
Mr Lawlor said he could not have been involved in proposing the Section 4 motion if the briefing had not taken place. He also said he had been in contact many times over the years with Mr Fassnidge, who was prominent in his constituency, contrary to Mr Fassnidge's evidence on this.
Earlier Mr Fassnidge, in his continued cross-examination, told Mr Brendan Grehan SC, defending, that he had spoken to nobody about the question of the £10,000 cheque to the county council for the right of way which was an essential condition of the planning permission granted.
The notes he had read in the court the previous day had helped to jog his memory and he insisted he had not discussed it with anyone.
"So I'm now suggesting there were two payments, the cheque to the council and the £10,000 cash I paid in my house to Mr Redmond," he said. Pressed further, he said it had gone out of his memory before this because it was all so long ago.
Mr Grehan said Mr Fassnidge had claimed he saw some of the documents produced to him for the first time in the court, but he noted a statement he had made and signed for Det Garda Anthony Scully last May when several of these documents were shown to him. Mr Fassnidge accepted that he had agreed that some documents bore his signature, but he had also told Det Garda Scully he had not seen some of the other items before.
Mr Lawlor said Mr Fassnidge had briefed him and other councillors at a meeting in the West County Hotel about his planning permission difficulties for the proposed petrol station. He had also phoned his office many times.
Mr Lawlor, who appeared for the prosecution, said his involvement arose out of the West County Hotel briefing.
Councillors felt they should pass this motion to help Mr Fassnidge, who had lost his business when it went into liquidation and had nothing else at the time.
Mr Lawlor said he and other councillors felt there was "a lot of double-think" in the engineers' report before the council objecting to planning permission. He said the council officials were prepared to allow another service station nearby which he and others believed was at a more dangerous junction.
Mr Lawlor also told Mr Grehan that Mr Fassnidge displayed "a serious hostility" towards Mr Redmond after the meeting in December 1987 with the valuation officer concerning the right of way from the public road to this service station.
He accompanied Mr Fassnidge to this meeting after he had contacted his office several times. The council put a price tag of £120,000 on the strip, which to him seemed exorbitant. They reached no agreement with the valuation officer, and Mr Lawlor went back about it to Mr Redmond, who said it was a matter for the valuation officer to negotiate.
Mr Michael McLoone, now retired as chief valuation officer for Dublin Corporation, said they acted as valuing agents for the county council. His view was that no charge should have been made for the strip of land required by Mr Fassnidge for the right of way.
He thought its value was nil, but one of the conditions set down when the Section 4 motion was passed was for a price to be put on it.
Mr McLoone told Mr Grehan he believed an internal county council memo from Mr Redmond to Mr Tom Doherty suggesting the £120,000 price was sent to his office to try to colour their view. The office was an independent unit in making valuations.
Mr John Faley, who was a valuation officer working under Mr McLoone, confirmed his note of the meetings with Mr Fassnidge and Mr Lawlor in December 1987 and with Mr Fassnidge in January 1988, where he was accompanied by Mr McLoone.
Mr Faley said he thought the £120,000 price was excessive although he asked for it. This disappointed Mr Fassnidge and Mr Lawlor who said the figure was totally inappropriate and ran contrary to the wishes of the councillors in the Section 4 motion. He said the meeting was amicable, "and we had no fisticuffs".
Mr Faley said he was also aware of a memo from the county council roads engineers noting that the cost of the road frontage at the petrol station was £71,500 and suggesting that that value should be put on the strip. The planning permission depended on the right of way being granted to Mr Fassnidge. The hearing continues before Judge Michael White.