Dunlop had ‘war chest’ of €470k when developer paid fees

PROPERTY developer Owen O’Callaghan paid Frank Dunlop’s legal fees of £364,000 when the lobbyist — who had a secret “war chest” in the region of £470,000 — said he wouldn’t be able to meet continuing bills, the Mahon Tribunal heard yesterday.

“I probably said I don’t have that kind of money,” Mr Dunlop recalled telling Mr O’Callaghan in November 1998 after the Quarryvale controversy became public amid sweeping bribery allegations by businessman Tom Gilmartin against his former business partner in the west Dublin project.

The Cork-based businessman reportedly said, “I will look after that”, when Mr Dunlop raised the issue of his legal costs arising from the tribunal’s probe. Both men had also discussed how they would deal with the tribunal’s orders for discovery of documents connected to them.

Mr Dunlop told the tribunal he was “in the crosshairs of a rifle” when the tribunal started to investigate the Quarryvale rezoning. Evidence was given how, after the two men discussed the legal fees, Mr Dunlop sent an invoice for £55,543.57 listing “legal fees incurred” on November 13, 1998, to Mr O’Callaghan’s Riga Ltd company.

This was the first of 16 legal bills for varying amounts, sent by Mr Dunlop and paid in 14 cheques by Mr O’Callaghan up to July 2000.

Mr Dunlop, the tribunal’s chief whistleblower since he agreed to co-operate in April 2000, alleges he spent £112,000 bribing a number of Dublin County Council members in the early 1990s to back the Quarryvale development on which the Liffey Valley shopping centre is located.

The Quarryvale project was first identified in the late 1980s by Mr Gilmartin, then based in Luton. He took on Mr O’Callaghan as business partner, but got into financial difficulties and Mr O’Callaghan took over the project and the two men became bitter rivals.

Answering tribunal lawyer Patricia Dillon SC, Mr Dunlop agreed he could have paid his legal bills as he had sufficient funds at the time. However, he had raised the matter with Mr O’Callaghan by phone that he didn’t see how his legal fees could be met on a continuing basis.

Mr O’Callaghan has told the tribunal he was unaware of Mr Dunlop’s “war chest” when he agreed to pay his legal bills.

In a statement Mr O’Callaghan has told the tribunal that Mr Dunlop’s evidence in April 2000 that he had paid bribes for Quarryvale and other developments came as a total surprise and he decided to cease his assistance.