Dunlop: Nobody expected tribunal results

LOBBYIST Frank Dunlop expressed the view yesterday that politicians set up the Mahon Tribunal in the belief it would merely be a public relations exercise and would not uncover planning corruption.

Mr Dunlop, who claims to have played a central role in the corrupt practice, agreed he had been motivated in ensuring the tribunal would not be successful. He agreed he had misled the tribunal until April/May 2000 when he decided to co-operate.

He agreed he had helped spread the view among journalists and politicians that the public inquiry, set up more than 10 years ago by the Oireachtas, was going nowhere and was “a joke”.

Previous inquiries, including a Garda probe, had found nothing untoward, he observed.

“There was a strong body of opinion in Leinster House — from day one — that the tribunal was established as a PR exercise and that it would last six months.

“Everybody, myself included, regarded this place [the tribunal] as a joke, populated by muppets. People believed it would destabilise itself immediately, including the people who set it up: The politicians in Leinster House.

“Not only was it not going anywhere but the likelihood was that it would lose its way.”

Tribunal chairman Judge Alan Mahon said “speaking as one of those muppets”, he wanted to know were there people strategising to bring the tribunal to a premature end.

Mr Dunlop said it would be wrong for him to suggest there was strategising but there were remarks such as “where did they get yer man?” — a reference to first tribunal chairman Judge Feargus Flood.

When the tribunal first asked Mr Dunlop to co-operate in 1998, the lobbyist agreed the only developer known to the tribunal was Cork-based Owen O’Callaghan.

Mr Dunlop said he never told Mr O’Callaghan — who hired him as a consultant on the Quarryvale development now under the tribunal spotlight — that he made corrupt payments and said he wasn’t aware of Mr O’Callaghan ever having asked him if he had done “anything untoward”.

Shortly after he admitting bribing politicians, Mr O’Callaghan commented to the effect “you never told me what was going on”.

The attitude of the late politician Liam Lawlor — who had been a member of the Oireachtas and was a key figure in the Quarryvale project — was “tell them [the tribunal] nothing and they’ll find out nothing”.

Before he decided to co-operate with the tribunal he had kept his involvement in relation to paying politicians “under the radar”, said Mr Dunlop.

Acknowledging that Mr Gilmartin never wanted him on the project, Mr Dunlop said the Sligo man was regarded as something of a loose cannon and he personally thought he was a buffoon.