FINANCE Minister Brian Cowen yesterday defended his backing for a commercial enterprise near Dublin Airport headed by a businessman from a Fianna Fáil family.

IRISH TIMES editor Geraldine Kennedy and the paper’s public affairs correspondent Colm Keena are to appear before the Mahon Planning Tribunal this morning over their leak of payments to Taoiseach Bertie Ahern.

AER Rianta suspected corruption was behind some Dublin County Council rezoning decisions in the 1990s, former general manager Brian Byrne told the Mahon Planning Tribunal yesterday.

FORMER supermarket boss Ben Dunne — who admitted giving the late Taoiseach Charles J Haughey up to £2 million — is due to give evidence to the Mahon Tribunal now investigating the rezoning of land near Dublin Airport.