Former minister Ray Burke has said he was not aware of payments made to councillors for supporting land-rezoning applications.
Giving evidence yesterday, Mr Burke said he knew allegations about payments had been made. However he was unaware of any truth in these. "I do not think that any of them, as far as I am aware, have been proven as of yet."
He had been the subject of allegations in the 1970s but these had been found by gardaí to have been without foundation, he said.
He said he was aware that there had been innuendo in the media about payments but he had no specific knowledge of this. The former minister had been concerned about a series of rezonings in north county Dublin in 1993 and he had asked the then minister for the environment not to approve the development plan at the time.
Mr Burke said that he was angry at proposals to rezone 70 acres of land owned by the Christian Brothers at Balheary, near his hometown of Swords. He believed that to develop north of the Broadmeadows river would break the natural line of the town and constitute a retrograde step.
The tribunal is currently investigating three unsuccessful attempts to rezone the land in the 1990s as well as claims by lobbyist Frank Dunlop that he paid four councillors for their votes.
Mr Burke said he learned of Mr Dunlop's involvement in the rezoning plan in 1991 and expressed his anger to him at a meeting in the Dáil bar. The rezoning was opposed by the people of Swords and Mr Dunlop was causing him political difficulties. Mr Dunlop used the Dáil bar as his "downtown office".
On one occasion when Mr Burke heard the lobbyist was there, he went in and delivered a fairly strong expression of dissatisfaction with his activities. He said "there would have been a touch of Anglo-Saxon involved".
Mr Burke said that the lobbyist was a potential source of political embarrassment as he was known to be associated with Fianna Fáil.
"He had been a Fianna Fáil press officer and a Fianna Fáil government press secretary. And his involvement would have been interpreted in the area as Fianna Fáil supporting something that was going against the views of the people in the area.
"That was not the fact, as I was the deputy for the town. His activities were being misinterpreted and he was causing me political embarrassment. And I felt absolutely entitled to say to him, stay away from Swords," he said.
Mr Burke denied that he exercised influence over Fianna Fáil councillors. Despite his opposition to the rezoning, Fianna Fáil members had voted in favour of the move in 1993.
Mr Burke said he had written to the Fianna Fáil group in August 1993 expressing concern at a number of rezonings.
