A building firm involved in a £1 million (#1.27 million) renovation of Mr Ben Dunne's Dublin home described the work on invoices as related to a Dunnes Stores food factory. All but £40,000 of the cost was met by Dunnes Stores.
Four of the eight invoices sent by Faxhill Homes Ltd, Cutlery Road, Newbridge, Co Kildare, to Dunnes Stores, wrongly described the work as being for a plant in Newbridge Industrial Estate belonging to Candida Ltd, trading as Newbridge Foods. Candida is part of the Dunnes group and the invoices involved covered the bulk of the £1 million. Naas District Court yesterday heard the money was spent on the extension and alteration of Mr Dunne's home as well as on the installation of television and security systems, fencing for the tennis court, furniture, including antique furniture for a bedroom, and a £2,392 sunbed for Mrs Mary Dunne.
Mr George Maloney, who acted as authorised officer to Faxhill Homes, said approximately £986,000 was spent on Mr Dunne's home, Winterwood, Carpenterstown Road, Castleknock, Co Dublin. This occurred between July 1992 and February 1995. Mr Maloney said documents gathered from Faxhill Homes, Eugene Beglan & Associates quantity surveyors, and Peter Stevens & Associates, architects, showed a similar treatment of the payments to that which occurred with the renovation of Mr Michael Lowry's home in Holycross, Co Tipperary.
Faxhill Homes and its directors, Mr Jack Tierney and Mrs Jennifer Tierney, of Newbridge, Co Kildare, are facing more than 25 charges of breaches of company law. A guilty plea has been entered in relation to three charges involving the 1963 Companies Act.
The case, before Judge Tom Fitzpatrick, resumed yesterday after the Christmas break and is expected to continue for the rest of the week.
The court heard that, during the course of the work on Mr Dunne's home, Mr Beglan would issue letters of recommendation and Mr Stevens would in turn issue architects' certificates. These would then be used by Faxhill Homes for the issuing of invoices to Dunnes Stores.
On some occasions, Mr Beglan issued recommendations to Mr Stevens referring to work on Winterwood but Mr Stevens issued connected certificates referring to work on the Newbridge plant. All the invoices were for work on Mr Dunne's home. "I am satisfied from the documents that Faxhill knew very well where the work was being done," Mr Maloney said. "When they stated that the work was being done for a food manufacturing unit in Newbridge, they knew very well it was taking place in Winterwood, Castleknock."
Large sums of money were involved, he said. Also invoices were being issued to third parties (Dunnes Stores). He said he was not going to speculate on how these invoices were used but they were issued and they were false. He told Mr David Conlan Smyth, for the Tanaiste, Ms Harney, that the issuing of invoices which misdescribed work done was a breach of section 202 of the Companies Act 1990. The furnishing of false information to a third party was a breach of section 242 of the same Act, he said.
The documents discovered by Mr Maloney included covering letters to Mr Michael Irwin, the former chief accountant of the Dunnes group, which referred to the work as being carried out on Mr Dunne's home. The court heard Mr Irwin had been questioned by the Blayney inquiry established by the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Ireland in the wake of the McCracken (Dunnes Payments) Tribunal, and that Mr Maloney interviewed Mr Irwin. Almost all of the payments had been made by December 1993. Mr Maloney said he found a handwritten invoice to Mr Dunne in the Faxhill files referring to £40,000 and dated February 28th, 1995. The payment was lodged that month and he had established it came from a personal account of Mr Dunne.
