Fianna Fáil attempted to raise £1 million to offset their debts in 1993 by asking 10 businessmen to donate £100,000 each, the tribunal heard yesterday. Fiona Gartlandreports.
Then taoiseach Albert Reynolds and Bertie Ahern, then minister for finance, wrote to businessmen, including Cork developer Owen O'Callaghan, in September 1993 and asked them to consider making a contribution.
"This is an exceptional situation and we ask you to consider this request favourably in the context of these strained circumstances," the letter said.
"A senior representative of the national treasurers' committee will be in touch with you personally in this regard in the near future."
Counsel for the tribunal, Patricia Dillon SC, said Mr O'Callaghan told the tribunal that after he received the letter, he met with former EU commissioner Ray MacSharry before Christmas 1993. Mr MacSharry asked him to give £100,000 to the party.
Mr O'Callaghan also told the tribunal, Ms Dillon said, that he had been positive about the request, but said he would have to think about it because of its size. He donated £10,000 at a Cork dinner in March 1994, he said, and gave £10,000 to Brian Crowley's EU campaign. In June of 1994, he gave the party the balance of £80,000.
Lobbyist Frank Dunlop was asked if he knew anything about the request at the time. He said he did not and hastened to point out that, though he had run the Fianna Fáil election campaign in November 1992, he was not responsible for the party's debt. "I was never paid any money by Fianna Fáil for my activities during the election," he said. The tribunal also heard that Mr Dunlop cashed a cheque for £25,0000 in September 1993 and "the money disappeared".
Ms Dillon said Mr O'Callaghan paid the cheque to Mr Dunlop for work carried out in connection with the Quarryvale project. Mr Dunlop cashed the cheque on September 17th, 1993, and Ms Dillon said, "there has been no accounting for it since". She noted that Mr Dunlop had a meeting with Martin Lanigan O'Keeffe of Guinness & Mahon Bank on the afternoon he cashed the cheque and she asked if he gave the cash to Mr Lanigan O'Keeffe for investment. Mr Dunlop said he did not.
Ms Dillon said Mr Dunlop also had an appointment for Power's in Kildare Street, a hotel frequented by politicians, and asked him who he met there. He replied that he could not recall. She asked him how he could remember that "Clondalkin" written in his diary meant he'd met councillor Colm McGrath and paid him £2,000 and yet could not recall what "Power's Hotel" meant.
"Is it possible you met someone and paid them £25,000," Ms Dillon asked.
"I would dispute that," Mr Dunlop said. He said he had no specific recollection of what had happened to the £25,000. "Alternatively, you recollect very well and you are choosing not to tell the tribunal," Ms Dillon said.
Retired Fine Gael deputy Brian Fleming told the tribunal yesterday that he received a phone call out of the blue from the late minister Hugh Coveney about the merits of Cork developer Owen O'Callaghan.
Mr Fleming was a member of Dublin County Council at the time and took part in a vote on Mr O'Callaghan's Quarryvale project in 1991.
Ms Dillon noted that Mr Fleming retired from politics in June 1991 and did not take part in subsequent, more important votes on Quarryvale. She asked if he might have been influenced by what Mr Coveney said.
Mr Fleming said if he was told a developer was not reputable it might have an effect, but if he heard someone was reputable, it would "go in one ear and out the other".