Department secretary ordered not to tell gardai about planning corruption

Civil servant's evidence: Former minister Mr Pádraig Flynn ordered a senior civil servant not to tell the gardaí about allegations of planning corruption, the tribunal has heard.Mr Tom Troy, who was secretary of the Department of Environment in 1989, said Mr Flynn told him the matter should be kept secret so that those engaged in irregularities could be monitored.

Mr Flynn also reasoned that foreign investment might be scared away if there was a scandal, according to Mr Troy's statement, which was read to the tribunal yesterday.

Mr Flynn's intervention arose after a man, now known to be Mr Tom Gilmartin, complained to local authority officials in Dublin about the behaviour of one of their colleagues, George Redmond. The officials then informed Mr Flynn, who was Minister for Environment.

According to Mr Troy's statement, the minister asked him not to take any notes of their meeting in 1989. Mr Troy pointed out that it was "fixed practice" to call in the gardaí when such allegations were made. Mr Flynn said this was "all very well" but foreign investment might be scared away by scandal.

Mr Hugh O'Neill SC, for Mr Gilmartin, who read out Mr Troy's statement, asked the Taoiseach if this was the policy of the Government. Mr Ahern replied that the normal practice was to call in the gardaí promptly. In the early days of the Financial Services Centre, he recalled, the Government had worked hard to build up its credibility and to provide it wasn't just a brassplate operation.

Mr O'Neill referred to Mr Redmond's evidence, in which he said he had been tipped off by a Fianna Fáil councillor, Mr Paddy Dunne, about a Garda investigation into planning corruption in which Redmond figured. According to Mr O'Neill, Mr Dunne in turn must have been tipped off by someone higher in Fianna Fáil.

Mr Ahern said he had no idea about this. Mr O'Neill said the Garda investigation into Redmond would have been "fatally flawed" if this had happened. Mr Ahern agreed that if this had happened it would have been "extremely unhelpful and undermining".