Monarch payments 'a necessary evil'

Monarch Properties regarded payments to politicians as a necessary evil which were part of the culture of the times, a former secretary to company founder, Phil Monahan, has told the tribunal.

Ann Gosling said requests for support were never refused because politicians had the power to influence the environment in which the company worked.

However, Ms Gosling denied any knowledge of specific payments made by the company to politicians while she worked for it and expressed doubt that Monarch would have initiated such payments. Monarch and Mr Monahan would not have wanted to be associated in any way with corrupt payments or bribery, she said.

Ms Gosling worked for 30 years as a secretary to Mr Monahan, who died in 2002.

The tribunal is investigating allegations of corruption surrounding the rezoning of Monarch's lands at Cherrywood in the 1990s, as well as substantial payments by the company to 69 politicians.

Ms Gosling, who also served as a director of more than 50 companies in the Monarch group, was pressed repeatedly during her evidence to name politicians with whom Mr Monahan had contact. However, apart from the late Liam Lawlor, she was unable to name any, saying she had a "poor memory" for names.

After being given time to think about the matter over lunch, she returned to the witness box and submitted a long list of politicians' names. She apologised, saying she had misunderstood the context of the tribunal's questions.

Ms Gosling said she was unaware that Monarch had employed lobbyist Frank Dunlop to work on the Cherrywood project and was also unaware it had paid money to Mr Lawlor. She denied any knowledge of an arrangement by which Monarch agreed to act as guarantor on a £14,000 car loan taken out by Mr Lawlor in 1988.

Mr Lawlor and Mr Monahan both lived in houses called Somerton, in Lucan and Castleknock, and sometimes their post got mixed up. Asked if Mr Monahan kept substantial amounts of cash at home, Ms Gosling said she did not think he did. Patricia Dillon SC, for the tribunal, pointed out that in 1986 Mr Monahan directed that £1-1.5 million in cash be made available to himself and his wife.

Asked about requests for payments totalling £250,000 by the late Jack Whelan for "residential consultancy" on Cherrywood, Ms Gosling said she had no idea what these were for.