#50,000 in account unexplained

More than £50,000 in the post office account of Fianna Fáil councillor Cyril Gallagher at the time of his death remains unaccounted for, the tribunal has heard.

After his retirement from Eircom in 1992, Mr Gallagher had no income other than his county council and health board expenses, according to tribunal lawyers. Of the £60,600 in his An Post account when he died in March 2000, £7,000 came from a pension lump sum from Eircom. The rest is unexplained.

An analysis of Mr Gallagher's accounts has also found that lodgements totalling £16,000 were made around the time lobbyist Mr Frank Dunlop alleges he bribed the councillor in 1993, the tribunal heard.

The tribunal is currently investigating a claim by Mr Dunlop that he bribed Mr Gallagher and three other councillors to vote in favour of the rezoning of lands at Drumnigh, near Portmarnock in north Dublin, in 1993. The lobbyist alleges he gave £1,000 in cash to Mr Gallagher in March that year.

Lawyers for Mr Gallagher's estate were unable to explain many of the lodgements made during the three-month period in 1993, but said the family believed Mr Gallagher may have had another bank account which has not been discovered.

One of the transactions during this period was a £2,000 cash lodgement to the An Post account on March 25th, two weeks after Mr Dunlop's alleged payment.

Mr Gallagher received a second pension lump sum of £10,000 from Eircom in 1992, but the tribunal analysis shows this money was transferred to his wife's account and used to pay off a loan before the time of the alleged bribe.

Mr Giles Montgomery, solicitor for the estate of Mr Gallagher, said it was "unconscionable" that the lodgements to his client's account could represent anything other than his own money. It would be wrong to blacken the name of a man who was dead by "insinuating into his affairs an irregularity", when the only irregularity was that he was dead and there was no one to answer for him, he said.

The only evidence against Mr Gallagher was "a scintilla of suspicion from a self-confessed perjurer".

He added: "Frank Dunlop's evidence is not only not credible, it is totally and absolutely tainted."

Inquiries by tribunal lawyers into the financial affairs of another deceased Fianna Fáil councillor, Jack Larkin, show lodgements of more than £4,000 during the same period, the tribunal also heard.

Mr Dunlop has alleged he paid £1,000 in cash to Mr Larkin for his vote on the Drumnigh rezoning.

Formerly an auctioneer, Mr Larkin had no source of income other than his council expenses before he died in 1998. But Ms Patricia Dillon SC, for the tribunal, said there was no evidence of a lodgement corresponding to Mr Dunlop's alleged payment in the accounts of Mr Larkin.

A number of councillors who gave evidence yesterday said they had no recollection of discussing the Drumnigh rezoning with Mr Dunlop.

Former Fine Gael senator, Ms Therese Ridge, said she had had "extensive contact" with Mr Dunlop from before the time she was a councillor.

Asked to explain her phone contacts with Mr Dunlop in 1993, she said that the lobbyist's son was seriously ill at this time and she had been supportive. In addition, she was completing aMA degree and Mr Dunlop's secretary was typing the thesis.

A third reason for her frequent contact with him was because she had acted as a go-between for charitable donations made by Mr Dunlop to women's groups in Clondalkin.

Mr Dunlop had paid for two sick women to go to Lourdes and paid the funeral expenses of another person. Ms Ridge described Mr Dunlop as "a pillar of society", who had changed and shocked her and "half the country" in 2000.

Another Fine Gael councillor, Ms Anne Devitt, said she had contact "on and off" with Mr Dunlop but had no memory of discussing this rezoning with him. She based her votes on proper planning and wasn't influenced by personalities.