The Court of Criminal Appeal has adjourned until tomorrow morning to consider what George Redmond's legal team says is new evidence which should have been made available in the course of his trial for corruption last year.
His legal team said bank statements and documents relating to Mr Brendan Fassnidge's bank account could cast doubt on the conviction of the former assistant Dublin city and county manager.
Mr Fassnidge gave evidence during Redmond's trial that he paid the former public official the sum of £10,000 to secure a right of way from Dublin Corporation at a time when he was seeking to build a service station on the Lucan by-pass.
Redmond, who was jailed for a year last December, is appealing his conviction on a number of legal grounds and is seeking to have new evidence taken into consideration. Bank statements relating to Mr Fassnidge's account with Bank of Ireland in Blanchardstown came to the attention of Mr Redmond's defence last month.
However, counsel for the prosecution argued that the defence had known of the existence of the new evidence during Redmond's trial and had made a "tactical judgment" not to pursue it. It had been open to the defence to ask for the discharge of the jury and for a retrial at that time, counsel said. Mr Patrick McGrath for the prosecution said the defence was seeking "two bites of this cherry" in asking that the new evidence be taken into account at this point.
Counsel for Mr Redmond, Mr Brendan Grehan SC, said the defence had not been in a position to know at the time of the trial what the new evidence contained, but that information was now available to the defence and to the court.
He said the focus now must be on what had emerged since the trial and he submitted that it could "possibly cast doubt" on Redmond's conviction.
The court heard today that there were a number of cheques paid from Mr Fassnidge's account at Bank of Ireland in 1988 for amounts of around £10,000. However, there did not appear to be any cash withdrawals for that amount immediately prior to the date Mr Fassnidge claimed he paid £10,000 in cash to Redmond.
Mr Grehan said his understanding was that there was "no transaction" which matched that described by Mr Fassnidge [in his evidence during Redmond's trial]. He said that in the light of the new evidence, it could now be put to Mr Fassnidge that there were no records of the transaction "because this never happened".
The defence had moved from a negative position to a positive one, where evidence existed to suggest to Mr Fassnidge that his claims were not true, Mr Grehan said.
With remission for good behaviour, Redmond is due for release in mid-August. The Court of Criminal Appeal is unlikely to give a final decision in his case before this date.
The Mahon tribunal last week postponed Redmond's evidence to the tribunal pending his appeal on the corruption charges. Judge Alan Mahon, tribunal chairman, said it wouldn't be appropriate to put Redmond in the witness box in view of his appeal.
The three-judge court, consisting of Mr Justice Quirke, Ms Justice Denham and Mr Justice O'Donovan, adjourned the case until 10.15 a.m. tomorrow.