FLOOD TRIBUNAL: The route of the South Eastern Motorway through lands in south Dublin was raised at the Flood tribunal yesterday, just as the Supreme Court was fixing a date for an appeal by opponents of the route through Carrickmines.
The tribunal heard evidence from Mr Seán Galvin, who owned farm land at Lehaunstown.
According to the 1983 development plan, the South Eastern Motorway was due to cut through a portion of this land. He sold this portion to Monarch Properties in 1989, and planned to build a golf course on some of the remaining land.
However, in 1991 he discovered that the proposed road route had been changed. It would now pass through the remaining 270 acres, cutting the proposed golf course in two.
Mr Galvin objected to the route, and his representatives asked Dublin County Council that the 1983 plan be reinstated.
Mr Galvin said the road would make the golf course impossible, and that a substantial portion of the remaining land was "sterilised" because of its archaeological value.
Mr Galvin said his efforts to reinstate the 1983 route were not appreciated by Monarch Properties, who wrote "a very unfriendly letter which I ignored".
In May 1992, a Fianna Fáil councillor, Mr Tony Fox, proposed a motion to Dublin County Council seeking to fix the line of the motorway so that it would release 156 acres of uninterrupted land to facilitate a golf course.
Mr Galvin said Mr Fox's motion had nothing to do with him. He did not ask Mr Fox to do this, and said that Mr Fox's proposal did not suit his golf course plans at all.
Former lobbyist Mr Frank Dunlop has alleged that Mr Fox received two payments totalling £7,000 in connection with the rezoning of lands in Carrickmines.
Mr Fox has denied this, and said that he never asked for, nor received, money in return for planning matters.
The county council eventually granted planning permission for Mr Galvin's golf course in 1995, but he decided not to progress with it.
He had planned an "upmarket" golf club, but had been told that it would have to be a public course. This would not have been viable, Mr Galvin said.
Today the tribunal is expected to hear evidence from Mr Brian O' Halloran, one of the owners of a parcel of land at Carrickmines which adjoined the controversial Jackson Way lands.
