An independent consultant who advised the Department of Energy on the sale of Glen Ding Woods in Co Wicklow to Roadstone Dublin Ltd was carrying out work for the company at the time the sale was going through.
Mr Kiaran O'Malley made a submission to An Bord Pleanala on behalf of Roadstone in connection with a concrete plant on land owned by Hudson Bros, The Irish Times has confirmed.
The National Concrete plant at Red Bog, Co Kildare, was close to the proposed quarry at Glen Ding, Blessington. Hudson Bros had approached the Department of Energy before Roadstone, expressing an interest in purchasing Glen Ding, but was told the land was not for sale and was never given an opportunity to make a bid.
The 147-acre site was sold by private treaty to Roadstone for £1.25 million in December 1991. An important factor in the Department's consideration of the sale was vehicular access to the site on the Wicklow/Kildare border. Roadstone had access, but so had Hudson Brothers. Now a Fianna Fail TD for Wicklow has asked why Mr O'Malley did not let the Department know that Hudson Brothers also had access.
Mr Dick Roche said yesterday that Mr O'Malley was a respected planning consultant and there was no question of his bona fides. However, his involvement with Roadstone had "always given rise to public concern in the county" and posed a "potential conflict of interest" regarding his role as an adviser to the Department, he said.
Mr Roche wanted to know why Mr O'Malley had not alerted the Department to the direct access Hudson Bros had to Glen Ding. Mr Seamus Maye, managing director of Framus Ltd, formerly National Concrete, said: "It is inconceivable that Kiaran O'Malley did not know of the fact that Hudson Bros were adjoining landowners with access to Glen Ding and two independent access points on to the N81, given the extensive work he did on behalf of Roadstone in its submission to An Bord Pleanala regarding our concrete plant."
Mr Devin Hudson, of Hudson Bros, said Mr O'Malley "should have looked into the other companies surrounding Glen Ding" when he examined the planning implications of the proposed quarry.
The Irish Times contacted Mr O'Malley's office yesterday, but he was unavailable for comment.
The former secretary general at the Department of Energy, Mr John Loughrey, told the Dail Committee on Public Accounts last week that the then minister, Mr Robert Molloy, was never told by officials about the interest shown by Hudson Bros and two other parties, Treacy Enterprises and Mr Michael Kavanagh.
A spokeswoman for Mr Molloy said yesterday he did not wish to comment. Roadstone Dublin Ltd has always maintained that it acted entirely properly in the £1.25 million purchase and that Mr Des Traynor, the then chairman of its parent company, played no role in the transaction.
Mr O'Malley told the committee he had worked for Roadstone on a "job by job basis" between 1973 and 1990. He had also represented Roadstone in 1995 in connection with a planning application in Blessington.
He said that in the late 1980s he had worked for Johnston Industries, which made an unsuccessful bid for the State-owned land.
Since the meeting it has emerged that Mr O'Malley represented Roadstone in November 1991 when the company made a submission to An Bord Pleanala in a planning reference case arising from the operation of a nearby concrete plant on land owned by Hudson Bros.
In December 1992 An Bord Pleanala ruled that the concrete plant qualified as an "exempted development".
In April 1990 Mr O'Malley had recommended that Glen Ding be sold by public tender, but warned that planning permission for quarrying would be difficult to obtain. The planning authority and An Bord Pleanala would be likely to conclude that access to the quarry could be obtained only via Roadstone's existing sand and gravel operation, which had direct access to the N81 north of Blessington, Mr O'Malley told the Department.
In a letter to the Today With Pat Kenny Show in February 1997 Mr O'Malley said he was appointed by the Department with a view to filing an application for planning permission to extract sand and gravel from Glen Ding.
Following his appointment he "effected extensive preliminary work" and carried out a "full inspection of the site and its surroundings, which included the town of Blessington and land in Co Kildare and Co Wicklow".
The Geological Survey of Ireland estimated that there was 10 million cubic metres of sand and gravel at Glen Ding, the equivalent of up to 24 million tons. At a price of £2 a tonne that gave a value of more than £40 million, Mr Roche told the Public Accounts Committee last week.
Mr John Barnett, a consultant who advised the Department of Energy, based his valuation of £1.26 million on estimated net reserves of 6.744 million tonnes to be extracted from 83 acres and on the capitalisation of discounted royalties for the life of the deposit.