The Government has appointed Mr Justice Feargus Flood as chairman and sole member of the tribunal which is to inquire into a series of land deals in north Co Dublin. The tribunal was set up following revelations that the former minister for foreign affairs, Mr Ray Burke, had received £30,000 in cash from Mr Jim Gogarty, a senior executive of a major building firm, in June 1989.
Mr Burke, who has since resigned, admitted receiving the money but said it was a political donation. However, Mr Gogarty claims it was linked to the rezoning of land owned by his former employer, Joseph Murphy Structural Engineering.
Mr Michael Bailey, of Bovale Developments, who was at the meeting in Mr Burke's home in Swords when the money was handed over, told Mr Gogarty in a letter that he could "procure" a majority of councillors to rezone the land.
The revelation of this letter put pressure on the Government to establish the tribunal of inquiry, which will focus on the parcels of land mentioned by Mr Bailey, and any other matters which it considers relevant.
Mr Justice Flood has been a High Court judge since October 1991. Born in Ballybofey, Co Donegal, he was called to the Bar in 1949 and took silk in 1974. He represented An Bord Pleanala in a number of cases over the years.
The son of a Dublin-born banker, he was educated at Castleknock College, UCD and the King's Inns. In 1992 Mr Justice Flood found himself at the centre of controversy over his decision to adjourn for a year the sentencing of a young man who was found guilty of rape in Co Kilkenny. He condemned the media for this "furore".
In 1993 he criticised the lack of treatment and counselling programmes for sex offenders in Irish prisons. According to him, they were "just placed in prison and left to rot. Then they are tipped out on to the public again."
In February 1994 Mr Justice Flood refused to allow a 27-year-old man, Mr Joseph Magee, to be extradited to Britain to stand trial for the murder of a British soldier on the grounds that the alleged offence was "political".
The decision was described as "scandalous" by Mr Michael Mates MP, a former minister of state at the Northern Ireland Office. Other Tory MPs accused the then Taoiseach, Mr Albert Reynolds, of failing to "clamp down on terrorism".
