BACKGROUND:Frank Dunlop became adept at courting councillors with flattery, free drinks and – when all else failed – secret wads of cash, writes PAUL CULLEN
FRANK DUNLOP is a former trainee priest and journalist who became so drunk on power and money that he lost all sight of ethical principles in the pursuit of financial advancement.
The “old” Dunlop was an arrogant, abrasive and often pompous figure remembered with little affection by journalists who dealt with him in his role as Fianna Fáil press officer and then government press secretary in the 1970s and 1980s.
Corruption had been a feature of Dublin County Council for decades before but, in his self-adopted role as a lobbyist from the late 1980s, Dunlop brought malpractice to a new level. With undoubted skills of persuasion and organisation, he marshalled callow and pliable county councillors through one rezoning vote after another on behalf of landowner clients.
The Kilkenny-born public relations consultant became adept at courting unloved local representatives with honeyed words, free drinks, restaurant blow-outs and, when all else failed, wads of cash. He became a player by secretly investing in his own rezoning projects, boasting along the way that he was equipped with “balls of iron and a spine of steel” to withstand any attacks that came his way. He even presented a current affairs programme on RTÉ, on occasion cracking jokes about corruption.
However, Dunlop’s pride preceded his fall. The “new”, contrite Dunlop who appeared in court yesterday is the product of personal tragedy and a relentless investigation of his affairs by the planning tribunal and the Criminal Assets Bureau (Cab).
In June 1998, his only son, Cathal, died after a long illness, aged only 16. Four months later, the tribunal wrote to him for the first time. He eventually appeared in the witness box of the inquiry in April 2000. At first, it was business as usual: “If you are suggesting to me that any monies out of my account were used for illicit or improper purposes, the answer is an emphatic ‘No’,” he told tribunal lawyers.
Quickly, though, the cracks started to show, and questions multiplied about the sums of money sloshing around his bank accounts. Famously, tribunal chairman Mr Justice Feargus Flood invited Dunlop to “reflect” on his evidence. Reflect he did and on April 19th, 2000 – Spy Wednesday – an ashen-faced Dunlop started to reveal the true nature of his relationship with landowners and councillors. Thereafter, in hundreds of statements, private interviews and almost 130 days in the witness box, he “fessed up” to involvement in more than 20 corrupt rezonings. He admitted the money he gave to councillors was payment for their votes.
His business collapsed. His friends and colleagues largely melted away. “True friends weren’t a problem; they remained,” he told The Irish Times last year. The stress contributed to heart problems and he had a stent in place.
The Cab came knocking, enlisting his co-operation for proceedings against businessman Jim Kennedy in return for a positive word in court when the now inevitable trial came round.
With no work to speak of, he has been living off his investments for the past decade, in particular the income stream generated by a 5 per cent stake in the successful Citywest business park in south Dublin. He wrote a memoir of his early career which sold more than 20,000 copies in hardback.
When the attractions of golf and a quiet life in Co Meath paled, he began a course of legal studies in Griffith College.
Dunlop’s co-operation with the authorities since 2000 has been sustained and massive, but he still has his critics. Some have questioned why his allegations have been directed at so many minor or dead politicians, the suggestion being he is sheltering bigger names.
Others have pointed to changes in his evidence or in his diary entries, and the general lack of supporting evidence for his allegations.
With the final report of the tribunal due out in the next year, he will remain in the public eye despite his incarceration. He is likely to be a crucial witness for Cab in its High Court proceedings aimed at seizing the Carrickmines land owned by Jackson Way, which was part-rezoned through his efforts.
He may also be called upon to give evidence if the DPP decides to prosecute any of the politicians alleged by him to have been involved in bribery.