BACKGROUND:Frank Dunlop awaits sentencing but how will the State act against the landowners involved, writes PAUL CULLEN
HOW IRONIC that Frank Dunlop should come up for sentencing during a local election campaign, when he funded the political campaigns of so many county councillors in the past.
Almost single-handedly, the former lobbyist provided the financial and logistical support for dozens of Dublin councillors in the early 1990s, through cash payments, cheques, car loans and poster and leaflet printing.
There is no role for this political junkie in the present contest. Since 2000, when he “fessed up” at the planning tribunal in such dramatic circumstances, Dunlop has become a pariah, the only person prepared to talk about corruption in a political system that, broadly speaking, didn’t want to know.
Next Tuesday, when Judge Frank O’Donnell delivers his sentence in Dublin Circuit Criminal Court, Dunlop will learn the price he must pay for his misdeeds. These are considerable; the orchestration of over 20 corrupt land rezonings through the bribing of councillors.
In assessing the penalty he must pay, the judge will have to consider what weight to attach to Dunlop’s volte face before the planning tribunal and ever since. For years leading up to that fateful day in April 2000 when he took up chairman Mr Justice Feargus Flood’s invitation to “reflect” on his evidence, the silver-tongue former lobbyist had been in denial, like the rest of the political circles in which he moved.
Three months earlier, the tribunal discovered a previously undeclared account of Dunlop’s in AIB, Terenure, into which huge sums of money entered and left with astonishing rapidity. Still, Dunlop refused to accept the money was used for illicit purposes until he was crushed by the weight of evidence.
Yesterday, Judge O’Donnell wondered whether Dunlop’s change of heart had been prompted by his legal team but his former barrister Colm Allen said it had not. Yet it was clear to observers at the time, though, that he had painted himself into a corner from which he could not escape.
Under ethics laws, Dunlop could face up to seven years in jail but in mitigation he has pleaded guilty and has co-operated with the tribunal, the Criminal Assets Bureau and the Revenue Commissioners.
As the court heard yesterday, the 62-year-old has had serious health problems, and no-one who was present in Dublin Castle nine years ago will ever forget the ashen face of the former government press secretary as he was led from the hall. That said, the irrepressible Dunlop has published a memoir, written another and retrained as a lawyer since finding himself without a job after his fall from grace.
And what of the councillors he alleges he bribed? Many of these are retired or dead, but one, Councillor Tony Fox, is standing in the current local elections as an Independent, having failed to secure a place on the Fianna Fáil ticket. Fox has rejected as “fantasy” a claim by Dunlop that he received a payment from him to support a rezoning.
Yesterday’s hearing provided news that files have been sent to the Director of Public Prosecutions in relation to at least some of the politicians named in the corruption charges to which Dunlop has pleaded guilty. However, it is by no means certain that any court cases will ensue; even if they do, the proceedings would take place in the District Court and are certain to be fought tooth and nail by the councillors concerned.
Of more importance, arguably, is the State’s actions against the landowners involved. Yesterday it emerged that Dunlop is to give evidence in the proceedings taken by Cab against Jackson Way Properties under the Proceeds of Crime Act. The High Court recently cleared the way for Cab to sue Jackson Way for €53 million over alleged “corrupt enrichment” as a result of the sale of the land at Carrickmines.
The snail’s pace progress in investigating has some way to go, it is clear.