Council was ‘driven by developers’

DUBLIN County Council conducted the business developers wanted done rather than being driven by regard for the wellbeing of the people, former Labour member Eithne FitzGerald told the Mahon Planning Tribunal yesterday.

She also said councillors were regularly called back from a nearby pub to vote on rezoning motions.

Fianna Fáil whip Pat Dunne stood at the entrance to the chamber and would give the nod or wink to the chairman to take the vote when he had sufficient names listed — even if someone was in mid-sentence during a debate in the chamber, she recalled.

Ms FitzGerald said the council’s whole planning system was “totally dysfunctional” between 1985 and 1991. The former Minister of State told of being besieged at home by letters from landowners and “developers and fellas in Jags and pinstripes asking to have bits of their lands rezoned”.

The rezoning of lands was the only business done. When there were not enough councillors present to ensure a vote was carried, other “harmless” business was conducted.

Meetings were held during the day and it was difficult for people like herself who held jobs to get time to attend all the zoning meetings. A big loophole regarding development plans was that they could be passed on a simple vote of the councillors present.

Ms FitzGerald, who retired in 1999 as a member of Dun Laoghaire/Rathdown County Council,

She had opposed and voted against the Monarch development proposals at Cherrywood in south Dublin. She asked for no political donations and received none.

The tribunal is investigating the rezoning of 236 acres of Cherrywood lands during the 1990s. Monarch made payments totalling over £500,000 in that connection, nearly half of this money going as political donations that were listed as expense costs.

Deputy Charlie O’Connor (FF) told the tribunal he did not tell an internal party inquiry — which in 2002 was investigating payments to politicians — he received £2,000 from Monarch.

He explained he did not believe it was relevant to the inquiry, as he had received it prior to being elected a public representative in the June 1991 local elections.

He told the tribunal he could not recall getting the £2,000, although it was his biggest-ever political donation.

Asked if he had received £2,000 from Monarch in April 1991, Mr O’Connor said he was not in a position to deny it if Monarch said they paid it.