FLOOD TRIBUNAL: A prominent businessman who hired Mr Frank Dunlop to lobby for the rezoning of his land has said he would never have paid money to councillors to achieve this aim.
Prof Austin Darragh said the payment of money was "a form of blackmail". "Once you start doing that, you are never out of it," he told the tribunal.
Prof Darragh, who owned over 20 acres of land at Carrickmines in south Co Dublin along with Mr Gerard Kilcoyne and Mr Brian O'Halloran, said he had had "sad experience of demands for money" in his life.
In 1987 Prof Darragh's son-in-law, Mr John O'Grady, was kidnapped by dissident republicans, including the so-called "Border Fox", Dessie O'Hare. The kidnappers demanded a ransom of £1.5 million, which was not paid.
Asked yesterday about Mr Dunlop's claim that he had paid the former Fine Gael senator, Mr Liam Cosgrave, £2,000 in connection with the rezoning of the Carrickmines lands, Prof Darragh said he had not been aware of this until it emerged at the tribunal. He paid very little attention to the evidence at the tribunal.
The witness said he was never asked to contribute in this way to a politician, and he would never had done so if he had been asked.
"We would never have countenanced it at all. That is not how we do business," he said.
In a statement to the tribunal, Prof Darragh says that after the kidnapping experience involving "a political organisation", he felt it was incumbent on him to support legitimate political organisations that did not use guns or balaclava helmets. This money was given to parties and not to individuals.
The witness told Mr Pat Quinn SC, for the tribunal, that he had no direct involvement in the management of the Carrickmines land or in attempts to have it rezoned in 1992 and 1997. Mr O'Halloran carried out all this work on his behalf, and kept him informed regularly.
"Why should I have been involved? I had an expert architect, Mr O'Halloran. In my career in business I've always relied on experts."
During this time his time was absorbed in business activities in many different countries, he said. In the early 1990s his wife was dying of cancer and was in a painful and distressed condition.
He also underwent a number of operations for his arthritis.
Rezoning was not the focus of his attention during this time. "I certainly wasn't concerned then about a piece of land in Carrickmines."
Prof Darragh, Mr Kilcoyne and Mr O'Halloran paid Mr Dunlop £5,000 for his work on the 1992 rezoning attempt, which failed, and £30,000 for the 1997 attempt, which was successful.
Prof Darragh said Mr Dunlop had not been "managed or followed up on as much as he should have" during the first rezoning attempt. There were too many competing demands on his time.
Asked why he paid his share of Mr Dunlop's fees to Mr O'Halloran, when he paid other advisers directly, the witness said it was not "calculated".
Prof Darragh said he did not know that a neighbouring landowner, Mr Jim Kennedy, had also retained Mr Dunlop to lobby for the rezoning of his land.
He knew Mr Kennedy was involved in Paisley Park, the company that owned the neighbouring land in the early 1990s, but he did not know he was involved with the current owners, Jackson Way.
When he was asked about the financial arrangements entered into with Mr Kilcoyne and Mr O'Halloran, the witness said these were private and of no relevance to the tribunal.
These "financial entrails" had already been on the table during Mr Kilcoyne's evidence and he did not propose to "go down that road".
However, after Mr Justice Flood reminded him that it was for the tribunal to decide what was relevant or not, Prof Darragh agreed to answer questions on the subject.
He said he had pressed Mr O'Halloran to bill him and Mr Kilcoyne for the work the architect had done on the lands over 20 years.
Mr O'Halloran had asked for £3,500 apiece at first, but this was "ridiculously low".
Mr O'Halloran had then sought £300,000 in total from his two partners, which they agreed to pay. This was on the agreement that it was "all-embracing and would see us absolutely square," he said.
