Developer paid €1.5m in premiums to ex-PD councillor's employer

AN INSURANCE brokerage that employed former Progressive Democrats councillor Colm Tyndall collected premiums of almost €1.5 million from companies owned by Cork developer Owen O’Callaghan, the Mahon tribunal was told yesterday.

Mr Tyndall, who was a salesman for Marine and General Insurance Ltd, began doing business with Mr O’Callaghan’s companies in 1993, a year after he signed a motion supporting Mr O’Callaghan’s Quarryvale development in west Dublin, now the Liffey Valley Shopping Centre.

Over the following 11 years, up to August 2004, Marine and General collected premiums of almost €1.5 million from Mr O’Callaghan’s companies, including Riga Ltd and Barkhill Ltd. However, Mr Tyndall did not tell the tribunal about his business contacts with Mr O’Callaghan when they wrote to him in 2000 or 2004 with queries about the Quarryvale development.

It was not until the tribunal contacted Mr Tyndall’s employers that he addressed the issue. In late 2004, in a letter to the tribunal, Mr Tyndall said he “never sought, looked for, or was offered any inducement” to carry out his duties as a councillor.

“I would ask you to be mindful of the damage that could be done involving a company in the tribunal business solely because I, as a public representative, was an employee,” Mr Tyndall wrote.

He also said it was “with hurt and dismay” that he learnt there “might have been impropriety” in relation to the Quarryvale development.

Mr Tyndall, who was born and grew up in Clondalkin, said he told Mr O’Callaghan at their first meeting in 1991, after his election to Dublin County Council, that he would not support Quarryvale. But he subsequently changed his mind.

Counsel for the tribunal, Patricia Dillon SC, asked Mr Tyndall why he changed his mind.

Mr Tyndall said he was initially supportive of the development at a rival site at Lucan/Clondalkin, which was already zoned for town-centre development. However, when he studied the background and discovered the town centre zoning had been in place for 20 years and nothing had happened, it became clear to him that the Liffey Valley development was more suitable.

“I realised that the only show that was in town at that moment in time was the Liffey Valley development,” he said. He said he then contacted Mr O’Callaghan and told him his decision.

Ms Dillon asked if he raised the question of insuring Quarryvale at that time.

“Absolutely not,” Mr Tyndall said. However, he acknowledged that as a salesman he would use every opportunity to make a sale.

“I know very clearly in my own heart and soul there was never a connection in any shape or form between the zoning . . . Owen O’Callaghan and what future business the company I was employed in did,” he said.

John McLoughlin, director of the insurance firm, rejected any suggestions that his company’s dealings with Mr O’Callaghan “were in any way underhand”.

“Marine and General Insurance Ltd has been in business since 1972 and conducts all its business dealings in a professional and businesslike manner,” Mr McLoughlin said.

He accepted that Mr O’Callaghan “was a substantial business client”, but pointed out that the company was not given all of the business it tendered for from Mr O’Callaghan’s companies.