The planning tribunal has deferred a summons issued to a businessman, James McCarthy, who failed to make a statement to the inquiry regarding his role in a payment by Fitzwilton Ltd to former minister Ray Burke.
The tribunal had originally ordered Mr McCarthy, a close associate of Sir Anthony O'Reilly, to appear today to provide a statement orally. Yesterday, however, on the intervention of Mr McCarthy's solicitors, it agreed to defer the matter.
The tribunal had planned to begin hearings next week into the payment of £30,000 by Sir Anthony's Fitzwilton group to former minister Ray Burke in 1989. However, these are likely to be delayed until after a legal challenge by Fitzwilton is decided.
Mr McCarthy is an 82-year-old retired businessman who featured in the Ansbacher report in 2002. He is listed in the Companies Registration Office as a director or former director of many O'Reilly-linked companies, including Fitzwilton, Independent Newspapers, Rennicks Group, Atlantic Resources and Novum. He is also a former chief executive of Dockrell's. He was one of a number of Fitzwilton executives involved in the transmission of the £30,000 from the company to Mr Burke in 1989. At this time, it was Sir Anthony's established practice to make donations to Fianna Fáil at election times, usually through Fitzwilton or Atlantic Resources. The payments were normally made to James Cawley, a legal associate of Sir Anthony who was a member of the Fianna Fáil general election fund-raising committee.
However, on this occasion, Mr Cawley got a message by telephone from Mr McCarthy to say that the subscription was being looked after. It would be paid through Robin Rennicks, who was friendly with Mr Burke. Fitzwilton had recently acquired Mr Rennicks's firm, Rennicks Manufacturing. Mr Rennicks and another businessman, Paul Power, gave a £30,000 cheque made out to cash to Mr Burke at a meeting in the politician's house on June 7th, 1989. Under pressure from the party, Mr Burke later passed £10,000 to the party but kept the rest.
In 2002, Mr McCarthy was named in the Ansbacher report, which found that cheques drawn by him had been lodged to Kentford Securities. This company was used by Des Traynor for Ansbacher accounts. Mr McCarthy said the cheques were repayments to Mr Traynor for loans taken to buy shares. The inspectors were satisfied with this explanation.
