'No regrets' for Dunlop on final day of testimony

Former government press secretary Frank Dunlop has finished giving evidence to the planning tribunal in Dublin Castle after more…

Former government press secretary Frank Dunlop has finished giving evidence to the planning tribunal in Dublin Castle after more than 120 days of evidence.

Speaking after his final day of evidence today, Mr Dunlop, who was also a lobbyist, said he had no regrets about revealing the "whole story" of planning corruption in Dublin County Council.

"I feel quite happy that it is over. I have been in contact with the tribunal for over 10 years. I got my first letter from the tribunal on the 9th of October 1998, and I have been giving evidence here since April and May of 2000," Mr Dunlop said.

"I cannot count the number of boxes. I believe the number of pages, taken in their totality in relation to what occurred in Dublin County Council in the specific period, come to the order of something like 750,000 pages, which is a lot of pages to deal with [on] an issue that was of importance, is of importance, and also ultimately the tribunal will make a judgement as to how important it was.

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Mr Dunlop admitted that "during a specified period prior to April/May 2000" he did not "tell the whole story".

"Since April and May 2000 in a variety of ways, in a variety of modules, we have got virtually the whole story," he added.

"There may be aspects of it that I am not aware of, or there may be aspects of it that I don't fully recall, but certainly in my view the tribunal has got the whole story, and it is now up to the tribunal to make a judgement as to what it believes happened in that period in Dublin County Council.

"I think it is palpably obvious to anybody including people who have been here from the media reporting on it day in, day out that, to quote former taoiseach John Bruton, when he was talking about something else, it is evident that not all matters that took place at Dublin county council [were] done or carried out by people who were behaving like angels."

Mr Dunlop (50) was appointed as Fianna Fáil press secretary in 1974 and was head of Government Information Services between 1977 and 1982. He joined Murray Consultants in 1986 and in 1989 left to form his own consultancy Frank Dunlop & Associates.

Mr Dunlop told the tribunal in 2006 that he made payments to around 15 councillors on Dublin County Council on a regular basis during his time working for developers.

He said he kept "a bag of cash" readily available from which to make payments.