Minister says Dunlop lobbying did not work

The Minister for the Environment, Mr Dempsey, has denied that lobbying by Mr Frank Dunlop and the developer Mr Owen O'Callaghan made any difference to a crucial Government decision on the size of out-of-town supermarkets.

"Nothing could be further from the truth," Mr Dempsey said yesterday. He insisted the Cabinet's decision in June 1998 to cap the size of such supermarkets to 3,000 square metres net was based solely on the advice of officials.

He was addressing the Oireachtas Committee on the Environment and Local Government.

The issue was the subject of controversy last July when it emerged that a Cabinet member leaked to Mr Dunlop details of Government plans to set a cap of 3,500 square metres gross. The day after this decision Mr Dunlop sent faxes to Mr Dempsey and the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, urging them to set a higher cap, based on net (rather than gross) area.

A week later, Mr Dempsey issued a directive setting the cap at 3,000 metres net, less than that sought by Mr O'Callaghan but significantly better than the original proposal. Shopkeepers represented by RGDATA had sought a smaller cap. Opposition members of the committee yesterday pressed the Minister to explain why the original Cabinet decision was changed, and who leaked the information to Mr Dunlop.

Mr Dempsey said that given the increase in economic activity and the growth in large-scale retail stores, he was faced with two options; to "sit on his hands" and do nothing, or to implement a cap.

It emerged from information provided by UCD's retail studies unit and other sources that the cap would be better expressed in net rather than gross terms. The 3,000 square metres net was "broadly equivalent" to the original Cabinet decision for 3,500 square metres gross.

Mr Ivan Yates, Fine Gael, disagreed. The net figure represented the shop floor open to the public, and the equivalent gross figure was up to 30 per cent greater. "When Mr Dunlop and Mr O'Callaghan couldn't get you to abandon the limit, they urged you to go for net size and you did," he said.

Mrs Nora Owen, Fine Gael, said the leaking of information to Mr Dunlop was an "extraordinary breach" of Cabinet confidentiality. "You should have been proper boiling at being undermined by a Cabinet colleague."

Mr Dempsey said he had "no idea" who had leaked the information. He rejected allegations that he was trying to do political favours for Fianna Fail supporters.