THE FORMER chief executive of the Dublin Docklands Development Authority has again stated that senior figures in Anglo Irish Bank had no role in securing planning permission for the intended new headquarters for the bank in the docklands.

Paul Maloney issued a statement on the matter following the publication last week in The Irish Times of extracts from correspondence between solicitor Declan Moylan and the authority’s chairwoman, Prof Niamh Brennan.

Mr Moylan was commissioned by the former board of the authority in October 2008 to write a report for it after the decision of the High Court to quash planning permission for buildings in the docklands being developed by a company owned by Liam Carroll.

The eight-storey North Lotts development was to have housed a new headquarters for Anglo Irish Bank, which was funding the venture. The planning was quashed because of the existence of an agreement between the authority’s executive and Mr Carroll’s company whereby the executive would seek to have the planning scheme for the area altered so Mr Carroll could double the size of his development.

In return, Mr Carroll was to cede land to the authority for use as a public space.

The former chairman of Anglo, Seán FitzPatrick, was also a director of the authority. The former chairman of the authority, Lar Bradshaw, was a former Anglo director. Mr Moylan’s report was never finalised and has not been formally accepted by the new board of the authority, which has since produced other reports.

In correspondence, Mr Moylan told Prof Brennan he felt she was pushing him to produce a report that would satisfy her “preferences” and that he believed this would compromise his integrity.

Mr Maloney said the Moylan report “took many months to complete and concluded that the executive acted in good faith and that their motives were ultimately in the public interest, ie to gain land for community parks and open space development. It also concluded there was a genuine miscommunication on what matters were to be brought to the board and those which need not be.”

He said “Ms Brennan’s report”, by comparison, breached fair procedure and was forwarded to Minister for the Environment John Gormley without the executives who featured in it being given an opportunity to respond.

“When it subsequently emerged that the Attorney General would not accept her report until all parties were properly given this opportunity, only then was the report circulated. Following an outcry, when all parties wrongly accused in the report vehemently objected to it, the report was hastily changed and the main central serious allegation was dropped.”

He said he sincerely hoped that an inquiry to be conducted by the Comptroller Auditor General John Buckley will include the taking of evidence on oath.

Mr Maloney said that, during his time with the authority, Mr FitzPatrick and Mr Bradshaw “never ever interfered with the planning process and had no hand, act or part or knowledge of the [Carroll] agreement which was solely conducted by the executive.”

He said they did not “through e-mail, telephone, verbally or through other parties seek to in any way interfere with the planning permission for the Anglo building or indeed any other building”.

A spokesman for Prof Brennan said the Moylan report to which Mr Maloney referred had not been accepted by the board of the authority. “He mistakenly credits the chairwoman as author of two reports which were actually carried out by two eminent and independent professionals . The conclusions of those reports are clear and unambiguous,” the spokesman said.