Senator due to be named at tribunal

A FIANNA FÁIL senator is due to be named today as one of a number of politicians who accepted an alleged bribe in return for voting in favour of a controversial rezoning issue.

Former political lobbyist Frank Dunlop is expected to identify Senator Don Lydon as one of the councillors involved in alleged planning corruption in relation to land owned by a pair of wealthy businessmen.

The case will be examined when the Planning Tribunal resumes in Dublin later today after a long break for hearings on its Ballycullen and Beech Hill module.

Mr Lydon is believed to be one of the recipients of a total of £17,500, which Mr Dunlop paid to members of the former Dublin County Council in 1992.

The allegations concern the rezoning of lands in the foothills of the Dublin mountains owned by brothers, Christopher and Gerry Jones founders of the Jones Group, which went into liquidation in 2004.

The inquiry will also investigate a change in land use of the group's former headquarters at Beech Hill in Clonskeagh, as well as the circumstances behind a separate payment of £12,500 by Christopher Jones to the late TD Liam Lawlor.

It is understood the Jones brother approached Mr Dunlop in the early 1990s after they had tried unsuccessfully for a number of years to have their 77-acre farm at Ballycullen in south Dublin rezoned for industrial use and housing. They had argued the farm was no longer viable due to trespassing and vandalism.

In May 2000, when he first revealed details of the extent of his role in alleged corruption, Mr Dunlop described the Ballycullen project as "relatively innocent".

He told the tribunal the brothers were "two very honourable people who had been completely frustrated by virtue of the fact that they had made applications after applications and nothing had happened."

Dublin County Council passed a motion proposed by Mr Lydon and the late Fine Gael Councillor Tom Hand by 42 votes to 14 to rezone the land for housing, despite opposition from the council's own planners.

The land was subsequently developed as Woodstown Village an estate near the M50 in the Knocklyon area of south-west Dublin.

Both Mr Lydon and Mr Hand have already been named by Mr Dunlop as having received payments in relation to several other controversial rezoning issues in Dublin, including Quarryvale, over the past two decades.

Gerry Jones, a strong supporter of Charles J Haughey and Neil Blayney during the Arms Trial, and a former member of the Fianna Fáil executive, died in 1999.

It is unclear if his brother, who is now 81, will attend the inquiry to give evidence.

Tribunal chairman, Judge Alan Mahon, has decided to begin hearings into this module after several legal challenges brought a halt to its other investigations into controversial developments at Quarryvale and Carrickmines.