FG councillor ‘hugged developer after vote’

FINE GAEL councillor Olivia Mitchell was caught hugging a developer after Monarch Properties won a vital rezoning vote, the Mahon Planning Tribunal heard yesterday.

“Lucky you don’t have a camera,” Ms Mitchell is alleged to have told environmental activist and lawyer Michael Smith, who says he witnessed the event after a Dublin County Council meeting in May 1993.

Two years later, Mr Smith told the tribunal how he offered a reward for information on alleged planning corruption and called for a tribunal to be set up.

The alleged incident took place after councillors voted for a higher housing density on Monarch’s south Dublin lands at Cherrywood.

Thinking she was being over-familiar with a developer, he said he commented to Ms Mitchell: “Kissy kissy with one of the developers,” and she replied it was lucky he didn’t have a camera.

“That seemed to me to be improper. She should not have been voting on an issue when she was close enough to a vested interest to hug him in reaction to the way the vote on his vested interest had turned out,” said Mr Smith.

The tribunal is investigating a series of unexplained cash payments amounting to £160,000 made by Monarch between 1991 and 1996, attributed to “general promotion” connected with Cherrywood.

Monarch made payments totalling over £500,000; a substantial amount of the money was paid out in political donations the company listed as expense costs.

During a Cherrywood promotional roadshow — before the 1992 council vote that Monarch lost — Mr Smith described how Monarch founder Philip Monahan told him he was close to FG councillor Deputy Sean Barrett, who insured Mr Monahan’s racehorses.

The late Mr Monahan said that while Mr Barrett was voting against the Monarch motion he would ensure his FG colleagues outside the south Dublin area would vote in favour.

Mr Smith said Mr Barrett had never behaved suspiciously at the council votes.

Ultimately, what Mr Monahan said had been achieved — FG councillors from outside the area voted for the Monarch project “at the last minute”.

Mr Barrett’s lawyer Paul O’Higgins SC suggested Mr Monahan may have been out to discredit Mr Barrett as somebody who had publicly opposed the Monarch development and Mr Smith agreed this was a possibility.

Earlier, former Monarch executive Richard Lynn insisted there was no “marriage” between giving political contributions and receiving favourable planning decisions.

“There is no marriage between making a political contribution and hoping that it would lend you a favour down the line. You would be a fool to believe that this would give you a favourable result,” he said.