The trial of former Dublin assistant county manager George Redmond on corruption charges is to go ahead next March after Judge Joseph Matthews rejected an application by the defence to stay the proceedings.
Mr Redmond (82) has pleaded not guilty to receiving £10,000 on a date between June 1st, 1985, and June 1st, 1986, as an inducement or reward for doing or forbearing to do anything in respect of a compulsory purchase order by Dublin City Council on 167 acres of land at Bussardstown and Coolmine.
Mr Redmond's trial was originally due to start on February 16th, 2006, but due to certain newspaper articles concerning him, the judge said that while he concluded it was possible to have a fair trial notwithstanding the adverse publicity, he invoked the "fade factor" and listed it for July 2006.
For administrative reasons it was adjourned to that November when Mr Redmond applied to have the matter adjourned sine die and Judge Matthews said he again adjourned it "to allow for the operation of the 'fade factor' for a period of not less than six months" and listed it for July 2007.
The judge noted that on July 2nd, the proposed trial was again adjourned to October 2007 because of media reporting of evidence in the Quarryvale module at the Mahon tribunal which discredited the accused.
Judge Matthews then fixed a date in November for hearing applications by prosecuting counsel Pauline Walley (with Patrick McGrath) and defence counsel Brendan Grehan, instructed by Kevin Walsh, solicitor, on the legal issues surrounding this case and the October trial date was vacated.
The judge has now ruled that the case is to be listed for trial in the second week of March 2008 and that on the appropriate date, the trial judge can issue "appropriate warnings and directions".
"Whilst the subject matter in the exhibits attached to the affidavits of Mr Kevin Walsh are adverse in a sense to the reputation of Mr Redmond," Mr Justice Matthews continued, "I am not satisfied that the applicant has discharged the onus of establishing that it will, as a matter of probability, lead to real and unavoidable risk of an unavoidably unfair trial, such as to justify adjourning the matter with liberty to re-enter."