Banker ‘surprised’ at £10,000 donation

PROPERTY developer Owen O’Callaghan probably gave an innocuous explanation when asked about a IR£10,000 political donation to Dublin county councillor Colm McGrath (FF) in October 1991, the Mahon Tribunal heard yesterday.

Former AIB senior manager Eddie Kay said he would have remembered if Mr O’Callaghan had told him the politician’s name and he had learned of the payment with “surprise”.

Answering Judge Gerald Keys, Mr Kay said political donations were never mentioned or envisaged in connection with costs associated with the Quarryvale project in west Dublin. The bank had never discussed with either Mr O’Callaghan or fellow developer Tom Gilmartin the extent of lobbying to be carried out, but was aware Mr O’Callaghan was a quite prominent Fianna Fáil supporter.

The Cork businessman had told the bank he had made political donations previously — but not related to Quarryvale.

Mr Kay said the bank would not wish to be associated with this type of payment and, if it knew, it would not have approved. Had it known payments were made to councillors it would have rung alarm bells and he would certainly not pay them “off his own bat”.

The bank was not told about IR£80,000 payments Mr O’Callaghan made to lobbyist Frank Dunlop over a three-week period in 1991 for the Quarryvale development.

Mr Kay, a former senior manager at the bank’s corporate division, said the bank was not asked for approval of payments to Mr Dunlop’s company Shefran and was not provided with invoices.

He was not made aware of the Shefran payments — made between May and June 1991 — until the following year.

He did not notice the lack of VAT element on the round-figure sums. As he did not have the invoices at the time he did not know the Shefran address was the same as that for Frank Dunlop & Associates (FDA), the lobbyist’s media company.

The witness said he deduced they were Mr Dunlop’s fee payments in connection with the Quarryvale lobbying process, as distinct from reimbursement of outlay expenses made to the FDA company.

Mr Kay said he did not consider the figures to be out of line considering the scale of the Quarryvale development. He pointed out that the Quarryvale development was run from Mr Dunlop’s office as neither Owen O’Callaghan nor Tom Gilmartin, who were promoting the project, had offices in Dublin.

Replying to tribunal counsel Patricia Dillon SC, Mr Kay said Mr Gilmartin had told him that he did not like or trust Mr Dunlop but did not explain why.