After almost a full year of investigation, the Mahon tribunal has completed its hearings into political bribery allegations involving the Jackson Way lands at Carrickmines, Co Dublin.
With the completion of evidence from one of Jackson Way's co-owners, Mr John Caldwell, yesterday, the tribunal is now ready to start a new module into allegations concerning lands in north Dublin next week.
Before that it will once again review today the co-operation provided by former Fianna Fáil TD Mr Liam Lawlor.
The tribunal has sat for 89 days since it began hearing evidence in the Carrickmines module at the end of October 2002. It has still to hear formal evidence on the legal ownership of the Carrickmines land, and a report is not expected until next year.
The investigation was launched on foot of allegations by former government press secretary Mr Frank Dunlop that nine county councillors were bribed to support the rezoning of the land. Evidence has been heard from five of these councillors and family members of a sixth, the late Mr Tom Hand.
Yesterday the tribunal announced that having investigated the bank records of two other deceased councillors, Mr Jack Larkin and Mr Cyril Gallagher, it had decided it would "not be appropriate" to call their representatives to give evidence.
Earlier, Mr Caldwell told the tribunal that significant parts of his personal and business life had "come to an end" as a result of his involvement with it. He had expended time, energies and large amounts of money in complying with tribunal requests.
His counsel, Mr Ian Finlay SC, said no allegation of corruption had been made against Mr Caldwell, and his client was not making such an allegation against anyone. Despite this, the statements submitted by Mr Caldwell were "greater in volume" than those of any other witnesses, including Mr Dunlop.
In preparing his statement Mr Caldwell had reviewed over 10,000 documents, and was in the process of reviewing another 20,000 that were relevant to other areas of investigation.
Mr Finlay referred to an accusation by tribunal lawyers that Mr Caldwell had misled them by failing to mention his ownership of Jackson Way and its lands at Carrickmines when first contacted three years ago.
He said the tribunal had asked his client "a series of discrete and specific questions" in a letter sent to him in June 2000. His reply was an answer to these questions, and was not intended as a complete narrative statement.
However, Judge Alan Mahon said Mr Caldwell had been asked a few simple questions, namely whether he had a beneficial interest in the Carrickmines lands and what this was. Mr Caldwell had given a detailed account of his involvement in various companies but he hadn't addressed the specific queries.
Instead, he had said that the lands "are held to my order", a phrase which, according to Judge Mahon, was "meaningless".
Mr Caldwell conceded that he had been "overly legalistic".
However, Mr Finlay said his client was entitled to say he had no beneficial interest in the company or its lands. He did not have "what the law would understand" as a beneficial interest (because his interest was held in trust for him by an Isle of Man associate).
