Members of the family of the late Liam Lawlor are expected to give evidence to the planning tribunal next February or March, as the tribunal begins the second phase of its examination of the Quarryvale rezoning.
Mr Lawlor's widow, Hazel, his son Niall and brother Noel Lawlor are on a list of 75 witnesses who will be called to give evidence in the Quarryvale II module, which begins on November 29th and will run well into next year.
Taoiseach Bertie Ahern and former taoisigh John Bruton and Albert Reynolds are also on the tribunal's list to give evidence.
It will also call a significant number of former Dublin County Councillors to whom former government press secretary Frank Dunlop says he paid bribes over the Quarryvale rezoning.
A tribunal spokesman said yesterday that the three Lawlor family members were "witnesses as to fact in their own right" and were due to be called before Mr Lawlor's recent death in a car crash in Moscow.
They were sent copies of the tribunal's brief on Quarryvale as long ago as last February, indicating that they were among the potential witnesses.
The spokesman would not say in what area of fact the family members were to be witnesses. But he said they were not to be seen as "substitutes" for the late Mr Lawlor giving evidence about his affairs, and the fact that they are being called is not related to his death.
The Quarryvale II module starts several months later than originally planned.
It has been delayed by legal actions taken against the tribunal, which is chaired by Judge Alan Mahon.
Mr Lawlor was to have been a key witness at the planning tribunal's hearings into the rezoning of Quarryvale, scheduled to begin next month.
A key witness is Mr Dunlop, who has told the inquiry that Mr Lawlor was the "Mr Big" behind attempts to bribe councillors to rezone the shopping centre site in west Dublin in the early 1990s.
Mr Dunlop says he gave the former Fianna Fáil TD for the area almost £50,000 for his efforts in securing the rezoning of the site.