Cash taken ‘without returning favours’

PEOPLE involved in planning in Dublin County Council took money from developers without doing the favours expected of them, Senator Don Lydon told the Flood Tribunal.

He said while there were always rumours about money being paid to influence votes on planning issues, he did not think it was corruption if those who received money did not allow the payments to influence them.

“I believe people got money but they did not always do, or I don’t know if they did, what they were alleged to have done for the money,” he said.

Senator Lydon was responding to questions at the start of a series of tetchy exchanges with Colm Allen, counsel for Frank Dunlop, who claims he paid the Fianna Fáil senator £3,000 in return for proposing a rezoning motion while he was a county councillor in May 1992.

Mr Allen took issue with Senator Lydon’s attitude to the tribunal and accused him of “constant whingeing” about the long hours he had to work and the additional pressure the investigation had placed on him.

He suggested that if being a member of the Seanad and the county council while working full-time as a psychologist was too much for him, he should give serious consideration to doing just one job properly.

Senator Lydon said he could not agree more and announced he was resigning from both the county council and his job at St John of God’s Hospital this summer, although it was later clarified that this was because he would be of retirement age and because the dual mandate rule for public representatives would kick in.

Senator Lydon also told the tribunal he had been “stupid” to get involved in a scuffle with Trevor Sargent at a council meeting in February 1993 when the Green Party councillor, now TD, produced a £100 cheque from a developer and asked if anyone else in the chamber had got one.

Senator Lydon admitted he grabbed Mr Sargent from behind and tried to get the cheque from him after Mr Sargent declined to disclose who had sent the money.

“It’s a bit embarrassing,” he said. “I shouldn’t have done it. I apologised to him later. We’re the best of friends now.”

Asked by Judge Alan Mahon why he was incensed that Mr Sargent had £100 when he had received thousands, Senator Lydon said he was not incensed but just wanted to know who sent the money.