Cooney criticises lack of opening tribunal statement

Counsel for the Murphy Group, Mr Garrett Cooney SC, was again strongly critical of the tribunal for its failure to make an opening…

Counsel for the Murphy Group, Mr Garrett Cooney SC, was again strongly critical of the tribunal for its failure to make an opening statement.

Mr Cooney said because no opening statement had been furnished, the Murphy Group's legal team did not know "specifically what allegations our clients have to meet".

He agreed that the issue of an opening statement had been raised before, but said it was important to bring it up again as Murphy Group witnesses would shortly give evidence against this background.

"This opening statement, we anticipate, would have contained a list of the precise allegations which my clients had to face and contend with at this tribunal," he said.

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"We should, of course, have been furnished with these at a reasonable time before the public sittings started. We weren't."

Mr Cooney said it was incredible that the planning history of the north Dublin lands the tribunal was focusing on had not been given.

"It seems to me a matter of common sense that one of the first lines of inquiry the tribunal would have pursued on its establishment was to find out the history of the lands so far as rezoning and planning permission are concerned," he said.

Counsel for the tribunal, Ms Patricia Dillon, said Mr Justice Flood had already ruled on the issue of an opening statement and the issue of the planning history of the lands. She said Mr Cooney had been furnished with a copy of this ruling.

Mr Cooney said he understood the tribunal's legal team had interviewed former members of Dublin County Council.

"It follows as day follows night, Mr Chairman, that these inquiries are, must have been, directed towards whether or not the members of the then local authority participated in any decisions related to the rezoning of these lands, and if they did whether improper influence had been brought to bear," he said.

"In my respectful submission, that is fundamental basic knowledge which should have been made in public at the sitting of the tribunal and which we were entitled to know before we are put in a position of answering the case made against us," he said.

"You know that Mr Gogarty has alleged that certain members of that local authority from both sides of the divide would be amenable to influence and bribery in order to have these lands rezoned," he said.

"You quite rightly forbade Mr Gogarty from naming these people in public. Nonetheless I think we are entitled to know whether or not these specific individuals have been named by the tribunal in connection with the allegations which Mr Gogarty made against them," he added.