Dunlop: Wild horses won’t make me reveal name

FORMER lobbyist Frank Dunlop told the Mahon Tribunal yesterday “wild horses” would not make him reveal the identity of a man he met in Dublin’s Davenport Hotel eight years ago.

An entry in Mr Dunlop’s diary for February 17, 2000, listed him meeting with Colm Allen SC — Mr Dunlop’s lawyer at the time — and somebody called “ANO”.

Pressed to identify the person at the meeting, Mr Dunlop told tribunal lawyer Patricia Dillon SC: “Wild horses wouldn’t get me to tell you who that was.”

Mr Dunlop said the issue was outside the tribunal’s remit.

“This was a gentleman seeking an appointment to the High Court, which he subsequently was [given].”

Yesterday, Mr Dunlop admitted to the inquiry — now headed by Judge Alan Mahon at Dublin Castle — that, in early July 1999, when he decided to make a disclosure on foot of a tribunal order, he did not tell he had also a number of other bank accounts.

Among the accounts not disclosed was his so-called war chest containing about £470,000.

From this account in the AIB Bank branch on Rathfarnham Road Mr Dunlop has alleged he made improper payments to councillors.

Mr Dunlop did not then reveal an offshore account in Jersey, an account in the Irish Nationwide Building Society in which he kept funds and the Shefran Ltd account used to accept funds for certain consultancy services.

When the existence of such accounts was about to be revealed by the banks, on foot of tribunal orders, Mr Dunlop conceded he took pre-emptive action by having his solicitor give this information to the tribunal.