O'Callaghan and Dunlop had agreed plan to pay councillors

QUARRYVALE:PROPERTY DEVELOPER Owen O'Callaghan and lobbyist Frank Dunlop operated an agreed strategy to ensure councillors were paid substantial sums of money to ensure or copper-fasten their support for the rezoning of Quarryvale, according to the report.

Payments were also made in recognition of councillors’ support for the project and to ensure they were well disposed towards it.

Quarryvale in west Dublin was the largest rezoning investigated by the tribunal, and accounts for almost 1,400 pages of the report.

The project was first promoted by Tom Gilmartin, a Sligo-born developer long based in the UK.

After he hit planning and political obstacles, he was joined by Mr O’Callaghan, who later took over the running of the project and completed it as the Liffey Valley shopping centre. Dublin city councillors rezoned the site in a series of votes between 1991 and 1993, but Mr Gilmartin subsequently made a series of allegations, which were investigated by the tribunal.

The report finds Mr O’Callaghan, who has always maintained he knew nothing of Mr Dunlop’s corrupt payments, provided the money in the “full knowledge” that it would be used to corruptly pay councillors to ensure their support for Quarryvale.

Mr O’Callaghan put Mr Dunlop “in funds” so that he could make payments to councillors, and in 1991 Mr Dunlop retained at least £65,000 in cash for this purpose.

Another £70,000 was provided in 1992, much of which was used to make further payments to councillors who were standing in the general election that year. Both men were corruptly trying to compromise the disinterested performance by councillors of their duties, the report finds.

“Mr O’Callaghan was aware of, and actively engaged in, facilitating the corrupt disbursement of substantial sums of money to politicians by Mr Dunlop in the period 1991 to 1993,” the report states.

It rejects the “often repeated” evidence of Mr O’Callaghan that he was unaware of Mr Dunlop’s activities. Mr Dunlop’s claim that the developer was unaware of his activities is likewise rejected.

The report lists corrupt payments personally made to five councillors by Mr O’Callaghan totalling £119,950. It says Mr O’Callaghan may have been a reluctant participant in this corrupt activity at the start but “readily embraced” the strategy.

The first corrupt demand for money in relation to the project was made by Cllr Finbarr Hanrahan in early 1989. Mr Gilmartin did not pay the £100,000 sought.

The report accepts the evidence of Mr Gilmartin that in early 1989, after emerging from a meeting in Leinster House with then taoiseach Charles Haughey and government ministers, he was confronted by an unidentified person who demanded £5 million from him, to be paid into an offshore account. The report describes the demand as corrupt.

Mr Gilmartin co-operated with a Garda inquiry but stopped after an anonymous call designed, the report says, to “discourage, intimidate or warn” him to desist.

His complaints about Liam Lawlor, Mr Hanrahan and George Redmond were not thoroughly investigated by the Garda, according to the report, which says the fact that Mr Lawlor was a TD was a factor in the Garda decision not to interview him.

In April 1989, the developer visited minister for the environment Pádraig Flynn, who sought a donation to ease the obstacles faced by the project. The report accepts Mr Gilmartin’s contention that the £50,000 he gave to Mr Flynn was for Fianna Fáil. It says Mr Flynn wrongfully and corruptly used the money for his personal benefit.

Mr Gilmartin’s decision to pay the money was “misconceived and entirely inappropriate”, but was done in response to an element of duress or coercion.

It says those who knew about the Flynn payment in Fianna Fáil by 1992 included then taoiseach Albert Reynolds, Bertie Ahern and party officials Seán Sherwin and Paul Kavanagh. But it was only years later, when news of the payment broke in the media in 1998, that Mr Flynn was contacted.

After AIB grew concerned about his ability to meet repayments, Mr Gilmartin was pressurised to take on Mr O’Callaghan.

Liam Lawlor TD also got involved with Mr O’Callaghan on the project, and was paid £150,000 by Frank Dunlop and £41,000 by Mr O’Callaghan.

The report says Mr Lawlor’s relationship with Mr Dunlop was “firmly based in corruption” and that the bulk of the payments he received from Mr Dunlop and Mr O’Callaghan were corrupt.

Mr Lawlor also corruptly sought a 20 per cent stake in Quarryvale, according to the report.

Mr Gilmartin was also involved in efforts to develop a site on Bachelors Walk, Dublin, along with English company Arlington.

Arlington, believing Mr Lawlor to represent the government, paid him almost £75,000 over 11 months. The report says Mr Lawlor’s acceptance of this money was entirely inappropriate and corrupt. Mr Lawlor also sought £100,000 each for himself and assistant city and county manager George Redmond, but Mr Gilmartin refused to pay. The tribunal says Mr Redmond was complicit in this request.