The former minister Mr Pádraig Flynn has told the Mahon tribunal he held private discussions with a British property company seeking to benefit from urban tax renewal incentives. Paul Cullen reports.
Mr Flynn, who was minister for the environment, said he received authorisation from the cabinet to meet representatives of Arlington Securities in private. At this time in the late 1980s, the government was anxious that the shopping centre Arlington was developing with Mr Tom Gilmartin at Bachelor's Walk should go ahead.
But he told Mr Liam Lawlor, representing himself, that the Government had already decided to extend the areas qualifying for tax designation and also to provide more time for the development of projects. It therefore didn't need lobbying from Arlington or anyone else.
Asked if the cabinet had ever authorised private discussions with any other developer, he said it had not.
In response to Mr Lawlor's suggestion that there was a "close, cosy relationship" between the government and Arlington, Mr Flynn said the government was anxious for the development to go ahead. He was authorised by formal note to speak to the developer.
Asked why the Bachelor's Walk project never went ahead, the witness said circumstances changed and the economic situation deteriorated.
Mr Lawlor said this was the reason given by Mr Gilmartin in his later evidence. However, he said that in his earlier evidence Mr Gilmartin had spoken about "blackmail, shadowy figures, corruption and the whole spiel".
"I know nothing about that," Mr Flynn replied.
He also rejected an assertion by Mr Ted Dadley of Arlington that the "doors of power were firmly closed". This was not accurate, the witness said. Any time Mr Dadley had sought a meeting, he was facilitated.
Mr Flynn said he met Mr Gilmartin more than seven times in the late 1980s and early 1990s. On no occasion was the developer aggressive with him, nor had he ever used "bullying behaviour".
Mr Lawlor said Mr Gilmartin saw the minister as the "final arbiter" of his plans to develop Quarryvale in west Dublin. He wrongly believed that Mr Flynn had the power to give the go-ahead to the project on appeal, as an English environment minister could.
Mr Flynn said he didn't have such power, and Mr Gilmartin had never told him he believed this was the case.
At the end of his cross-examination, Mr Lawlor claimed that he and Mr Flynn had "buried" Mr Gilmartin. "It's obvious that you and I didn't come to praise him today. Unlike Mark Antony at Caesar's funeral, we came not to praise him but to bury him, and I think we have effectively done that."
Mr Flynn substantially concluded his evidence yesterday, after which the tribunal adjourned until the autumn.