The trial of George Redmond, former assistant city and county manager, for alleged corruption has been fixed for December 5th by Judge Desmond Hogan at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court.
Mr Redmond (79) was originally scheduled to go on trial on December 1st, 2004, on this matter.
However, that date was vacated after Judge Hogan agreed to a submission by senior counsel Brendan Grehan, for Mr Redmond, on November 26th, 2004, because his client was scheduled to go into hospital for surgery last December.
Judge Hogan also fixed yesterday as the new date for Mr Redmond's arraignment on the corruption charge concerning land at Buzzardstown, Co Dublin, but was told by Mr Grehan that Mr Redmond was still undergoing medical care and further time would be needed to ascertain when he would be fit to stand trial.
Judge Hogan said he had to fix a trial date because he could not leave the case "in limbo".
He gave liberty to both prosecution and defence to make applications to the court before the new trial date should that be necessary.
Mr Grehan previously told Judge Hogan that his client was suffering from medical complications, and was now seeking a second opinion from two medical professors for health problems that caused him to lose a stone in weight months before the trial.
Senior counsel Patrick J McCarthy, prosecuting (with Patrick McGrath), who also previously agreed to adjourning the trial scheduled for last December on what he described as "humanitarian grounds", accepted it was best to fix a date as far forward as December 2005.