Businessman asked about land dealings

THE FLOOD TRIBUNAL: A prominent businessman has told how he was warned that Mr Jim Kennedy was a "slippery individual" who had to be watched carefully.

Mr Gerard Kilcoyne told the tribunal that a trusted business friend had warned him to be wary of Mr Kennedy and to be "trebly certain" that he had the best legal and property advice before having any dealings with him.

Mr Kennedy is the owner of land at Carrickmines in south Dublin who is alleged to have paid money to have councillors bribed for rezoning votes. He is currently abroad and says that he will not co-operate with the tribunal.

Mr Kilcoyne, together with Mr Brian O'Halloran and Prof Austin Darragh, bought land in Carrickmines in the late 1980s. Mr Kennedy bought an adjoining property and was anxious to collaborate in any planning application.

However, in a letter written in June 1990, Mr Kilcoyne described Mr Kennedy as "a hustler, a wheeler-dealer, a type who is probably devious and certainly litigious".

Mr Kennedy was "currently pursuing the Bank of Ireland on two issues", Mr Kilcoyne wrote, adding: "I don't like his involvement in the current county council scam."

Yesterday, Mr Kilcoyne said that an auditor and business friend who had done work for Mr Kennedy was the source of this information.

This man had informed him of Mr Kennedy's style and modus operandi. "He alerted me to the fact that Jim Kennedy was a very effective property operator and had many involvements and dealings."

Mr Kennedy, it was said, had a "strong native intelligence" and was a "far-thinking and far-seeing individual". He was "by nature" a property dealer and speculator.

Asked what he understood county council "scam" to mean, the witness said there had been a number of articles in Phoenix magazine at the time. These had dealt with Mr Kennedy's property dealings in Baldoyle and with a politician in Lucan.

Mr Kilcoyne had already expressed "reservations" about dealing with Mr Kennedy in another letter written in 1988. While Mr Kennedy had always been "normal" and polite in the meetings they had, he felt it was better that any dealings between the landowners should be carried out through the relevant professionals.

In meetings, Mr Kennedy was a "good talker". He gave away little, but was always foraging for information. In their initial contacts, he had never mentioned the name of the lobbyist Mr Frank Dunlop, Mr Kilcoyne recalled.

The Kilcoyne/O'Halloran/Darragh land was subject to a restrictive covenant which limited the number of houses which could be built upon it. Mr Kennedy's property had access problems, and he had proposed helping his neighbours to get rid of the covenant in return for access through their land.

Both parties had employed Mr Dunlop to try to secure the rezoning of their lands in 1992. Mr Kilcoyne, Mr O'Halloran and Prof Darragh had paid Mr Dunlop £1,500 in the first - failed - attempt, and a £30,000 success fee when their land was partially rezoned in 1997.

Mr Kilcoyne said that Mr Kennedy had asked him and his partners not to bandy his name about. He was a very private and "paranoid" person. "From the start, he was one of the world's leading low-profilers." The witness said that he and his business partners had "ongoing barneys" about the ownership of their property.

Mr O'Halloran was under the impression that he owned more of the property than he actually did. It was eventually agreed that Mr Kilcoyne and Prof Darragh would each pay £150,000 to their business partner.

Mr Kilcoyne was asked about a letter from the group's solicitor in 2000 which referred to a claim by Mr O'Halloran for £50,000 from his partners for an account discharged in 1997.

He said that this related to office expenses incurred by Mr O'Halloran in relation to "prodigious" work on the lands. The reference to an account "discharged" was an error; this should have read "charged".

Mr Kilcoyne told Mr Justice Flood he was "absolutely certain" that no sum of £50,000 had been paid out to any third party in relation to the lands in 1997.