Finnegan links with earlier controversies

Mr John Finnegan, who has been identified by the Flood tribunal as the part-owner of a company that made financial contributions to Mr Ray Burke, is no stranger to public controversy.

In 1999, he was cited in the High Court as being the beneficiary of a £1.88 million loan secured by Anbacher Cayman bank.

He is probably best remembered as the man who sought a finder's fee of £150,000 from Telecom Eireann in the early 1990s after it purchased the former Johnston Mooney and O'Brien site in Ballsbridge. This was for work done before the semi-State company acquired the site for £9.4 million. After the intervention of his friend Mr Michael Smurfit, who was then chairman of Telecom, Mr Finnegan settled for £40,000.

Tribunal lawyers have now summonsed the leading Dublin auctioneer to give evidence and produce documents relating to his ownership of a Guernsey-based company, Foxtown Investments. Mr Finnegan is expected to come before the tribunal next week at the earliest.

Foxtown Investments, and two companies controlled by the builders Mr Tom Brennan and Mr Joseph McGowan, held equal shares in Ardcarn Ltd. This company wholly owned another Channel Islands company, Canio Ltd, which was set up as the vehicle used to buy lands in Sandyford, Co Dublin. Canio Ltd made two payments, £60,000 in 1984 and £15,000 in 1985, to Caviar Ltd, a Jersey-based company set up by Mr Burke.

Mr Finnegan was not available for comment yesterday. It is not known whether he was aware that one of the companies to which he was linked was used to channel funds to Mr Burke.

Mr Finnegan (68) is the principal of Finnegan Menton, one of Dublin's leading estate agents. The company's client list includes many of the leading companies in business parks in south Dublin. Last year, it negotiated the largest office letting deal in the State, between Eircell and the developers of the Central Park complex in Sandyford. The mobile phone operator agreed to an annual rent of £5.25 million.