Joe Burke is a big bluff Donegal-born builder who is one of Bertie Ahern's circle of north Dublin friends. He was active in politics as a city councillor between 1985 and 1991.
He first met Bertie Ahern in the mid-1970s, when they were neighbours in the new Pinebrook estate in Artane, the first house Mr Ahern moved into after his marriage. They were instrumental in forming an estate residents' association, and both they and their wives became good friends.
Mr Burke was then working as a foreman on building sites around the city. Later he spent a few years in the motor trade with Northside Motors and a crash repairs business in the north inner city, before setting up on his own account as a small general builder. A Dublin architect remembers him tendering for a contract for the refurbishment of a city centre retail premises in the mid-1980s.
In 1985 he was elected to Dublin City Council for the Clontarf area behind Fianna Fail TD Vincent Brady and Cllr Sean Dublin Bay Loftus. A year later he became vice-chairman of the council's planning committee, which was chaired by Eoin Ryan, a less rumbustuous character, who was unusual among Fianna Fail councillors in his concern for conservation issues.
Mr Burke made a considerable mark when deputising in the chair of the Fianna Fail-controlled committee's proceedings over the next four years as a strong advocate of building houses and roads. "He was very forceful on planning issues," remembers one fellow councillor. "My recollection is that he chaired most of the meetings."
But he balked at the massive nature of the shopping centre-cum-bus station Mr Tom Gilmartin was proposing for Bachelor's Walk in 1988. In Mr Ahern's words to the Dail last month: "Cllr Burke told him it would create grave difficulties for the council because it was in favour of the development in Temple Bar but was not in favour of the new bridge or the bus station on the Bachelor's Walk site."
Mr Ahern said that was the only meeting Mr Burke had with the developer, and he said the former councillor was "quite adamant that he did not ask him for or about a contribution to Fianna Fail, at my behest or otherwise."
Mr Gilmartin says he did not discuss the Bachelor's Walk development with Mr Burke, but only problems over his £5 million purchase of corporation-owned land at Quarryvale in west Dublin, the site of his other huge shopping centre project, which Mr Burke helped sort out for him. Government sources later said both Bachelor's Walk and Quarryvale were discussed.
Mr Burke says he does not remember meeting Mr Gilmartin a second time and driving him in his pick-up truck to a pub in Drumcondra in an unsuccessful attempt to meet Mr Ahern, and then to the airport. He says he did not own such a vehicle at the time.
He refuses to talk about his meeting with Mr Gilmartin, saying it is a matter for the Flood tribunal.
Senior corporation planning officials who met Mr Gilmartin at the time have no recollection of Mr Burke being at any of the meetings. They do remember him actively seeking planning permission for his own building projects, although they stress he was careful to keep that separate from council business.
In 1991 Mr Burke lost his seat on the council by a few votes to fellow-Fianna Failer Mr John Stafford. People who knew him said he did not do enough work in the constituency and seemed to have little enthusiasm for the humdrum round of local politics, preferring to spend his time expanding his building business.
At around this time he moved into a new and lucrative line - refitting pubs. He has refurbished numerous northside pubs, including well-known haunts of the Taoiseach and his circle such as Fagans in Drumcondra and the Beaumont House. His firm's office was previously above Fagans, once Mr Ahern's constituency office. He has a reputation among north Dublin builders for putting in low bids and doing the work quickly and without frills.
He is not extremely wealthy despite his detached house in Collins Avenue and the mandatory Mercedes. His building firm is a small one, run by him and his wife Helen. He works very long hours and has the builder's knack of being able to turn his hand to anything. "He can be a rough and tough customer like anybody in the building business," says one acquaintance.
There is no doubt that Mr Burke is a good friend of the Taoiseach. However, in recent years he has not been part of the inner circle of political confidants, unlike Senator Tony Kett, probably Mr Ahern's closest friend from the youthful years when they both worked in the Mater Hospital; Mr Paul Kiely, a fellow accountant who is chief executive of the Central Remedial Clinic; and athletics official and FF national executive member Mr Chris Wall.