Flynn denies £50,000 went into his pocket

FORMER EU commissioner Pádraig Flynn has denied that he "trousered" a £50,000 donation intended for Fianna Fáil.

He also denied asking Luton-based developer Tom Gilmartin to say the donation he gave had been returned. He also denied that, in a phone call he made to Mr Gilmartin in September 1998, he asked Mr Gilmartin to say the £50,000 was given for his own use and not for the Fianna Fáil party.

Counsel for the tribunal, Patricia Dillon SC, said Mr Gilmartin had told the tribunal that the donation of £50,000 he gave Mr Flynn in May 1989 was intended for the party. The cheque was left blank on Mr Flynn's request, Mr Gilmartin had said.

Ms Dillon said Mr Gilmartin had effectively said Mr Flynn had "trousered" the money.

Mr Flynn accused Ms Dillon of looking for a headline. "That is not the way it was," he said. He said Mr Gilmartin was "threatened" by tribunal counsel before he made a statement in 1998 and it was intimated to him that the donation would be seen as a bribe.

"That is why he had to change his story," Mr Flynn said.

However, Ms Dillon pointed out that Seán Sherwin, former Fianna Fáil national organiser, had said Mr Gilmartin told him in 1990 he had given £50,000 to a minister for the party. Mr Gilmartin had also told his solicitor, in 1996, that a minister had held on to £50,000 he'd donated to the party, she said, long before the tribunal was established.

Mr Flynn said Mr Gilmartin told him the cheque was for himself, for the election campaign.

Judge Gerald Keys asked Mr Flynn if, as a minister in high office, he was not uncomfortable taking a cheque made out to cash from a developer.

"Coming up to an election that wouldn't occur," Mr Flynn replied.

Judge Keys also asked him why he never wrote a letter of acknowledgement for what was the largest donation he had ever been given.

"I would have thought good manners alone would dictate that," he said. He said he found it "astonishing" and "extraordinary" that no letter had been written.

"He was thanked for it there on the spot," Mr Flynn said.

Ms Dillon said that after a story appeared in the papers in 1998, saying that an ex-minister received £50,000 from a developer that should have been given to Fianna Fáil, Mr Flynn made a series of phone calls to Mr Gilmartin.

Mr Gilmartin had told the tribunal that in one two-hour phone call Mr Flynn tried to persuade him to say the donation was returned, and when he disagreed, to say it was for him personally.

Mr Flynn said he called Mr Gilmartin to be sure their recollections of the donation were the same.

He said Mr Gilmartin agreed with his version on the phone.