A company used by Fianna Fáil's selected Meath by-election candidate Mr Tommy Reilly and Mr Frank Dunlop to buy land in 1997 is owned by an offshore company registered on the island of Niue in the South Pacific, according to Companies Registration Office documents.
Mr Dunlop said yesterday that the fact that ownership of the company appeared to rest on an island on the far side of the globe resulted from an "oversight" whereby company records were not amended to reflect the true position.
He said he and Mr Reilly had been the co-owners of Hallering Developments, a shelf company they had acquired from an accountant with the specific purpose of buying this piece of land. He had sold his share to Mr Reilly in 2002, but understood the situation whereby the shareholder was incorrectly identified as this offshore company was now in the course of being rectified.
Mr Reilly could not be contacted for comment yesterday. Fianna Fáil has given him until this evening to respond to a list of queries concerning his joint purchase, in 1997, of around 11 acres of land at Edoxtown, Co Meath, with Mr Dunlop.
Local and national Fianna Fáil sources say there is now considerable doubt over whether Mr Reilly, who was chosen as the party candidate at a selection convention before Christmas, will receive the necessary ratification from the party's national executive to allow him to run. Mr Reilly has insisted the land purchase was entirely above board and that there is nothing unusual about it.
However, the mere fact of his association with Mr Dunlop, who has been involved in several major planning controversies and who told the planning tribunal that he bribed a number of Dublin councillors, has caused concern within the party.
Mr Reilly and his solicitor Mr Noel Smyth have been involved in supplying Fianna Fáil headquarters with the information it is seeking to satisfy the party about the transaction.
The land in question was bought by Hallering Developments, which Mr Reilly and Mr Dunlop both say they used to buy the land.
However, neither man has ever been listed as a director or a shareholder. The shareholder is named as Fovaranne Ltd, with a post office box address in Alofi, Niue. Niue is a small island east of the island of Tonga, which is north of New Zealand.
Mr Dunlop said yesterday Hallering Developments was a ready-made "shelf company" he and Mr Reilly had acquired from an accountant's office.
They had changed the nominee directors "to identifiable Irish people". But "by some oversight once the company was bought", the original named shareholders were never changed to reflect the fact that the company was now owned by Mr Reilly and Mr Dunlop.
He said neither he nor Mr Reilly had anything to do with this South Pacific company, nor had he heard of the island of Niue.
Mr Dunlop repeated that the two men had had no plans for major development on the land, but had thought they might build a house or houses for their children there at some point.
Mr Reilly's daughter received planning permission for a house on a one-acre site on the land late last year, after two appeals to An Bord Pleanála.