A FIANNA Fail councillor has denied he got £400,000 by fraud while he was a senior executive at Shannon Free Airport Development Company.
Mr Enda Mulkere (46), of Carrownacloughy, Crusheen, Co Clare, has pleaded not guilty to 16 charges of committing the fraud by false pretences on dates from October 1991 to June 1992.
The charges against Mr Mulkere allege he obtained sums, or caused sums or attempted to cause sums to be paid to contractors, by falsely pretending the money was due to them from SFADCo in respect of work done or services lawfully rendered.
A building contractor identified six cheques totalling £26,752 which he told the jury at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court he gave to Mr Mulkere but denied in cross examination that he lent the money personally to him.
Mr Jack McCarthy, a director of McCarthy Brothers and Company (Ennis) Ltd, of Ballybeg, said the defendant told him he needed the money to pay subcontractors for work done by them for SFADCo. He asked the witness to include the amount in a final account from McCarthys for work done by them for SFADCo as a means of having it repaid.
Mr McCarthy told Mr Paul McDermott (with Mr Paul O'Higgins SC), prosecuting, he knew Mr Mulkere as a senior SFADCo executive. The witness said he saw nothing wrong in this and paid out the money.
The first cheque was for £10,739 which he paid out around October 1991. This was then included in a certificate issued for work done for SFADCo by McCarthys. The total amount on the certificate was £17,710 and a cheque was received for that amount on January 23rd, 1992.
Mr McCarthy said Mr Mulkere asked him for further cheques in March and May 1992. He identified cheques for £4,912, £4,453, and £1,532, totalling £10,897, which he paid out.
Mr McCarthy also identified two more cheques for £1,350 and £3,765 he provided for the defendant.
He signed all the cheques on the various dates in 1991 and 1992 and they were made payable to, cash at Mr Mulkere's request.
He also agreed that invoices for sums of £2,004 and £16,182 had been issued by his company for alleged work at Smithstown near Shannon. He said his company did not carry out any of this work.
Defence counsel Mr Peter Charleton SC asked Mr McCarthy, in cross examination, to explain a judgment he got against the accused in Ennis Circuit Court on September 21st, 1992, for a total of £26,752.
Mr McCarthy agreed he had sworn an affidavit on oath that the money had been paid by him as a loan to Mr Mulkere.
Mr Charleton suggested to Mr McCarthy it was "a very easy thing" for him to claim the money had been received by Mr Mulkere by fraud and it would have been just as easy to say it was for a loan.
Mr McCarthy said he gave the money to the accused on the basis it was for SFADCo, but after SFADCo said the money did not go for the works alleged by the accused, his legal advisers said they should try to recover the money that way. He did not lend the money personally to the accused.
The witness agreed he had got a judgment against Mr Mulkere but had not yet registered it.
Outlining the case earlier, Mr O'Higgins said the State alleged Mr Mulkere deceived three sets of people as outlined in the charges. These were Mr McCarthy and his company; Mr Thomas Madden and his companies; and SFADCo. Obtaining cheques by false pretences meant getting them by lies.
He said Mr Mulkere occupied a senior position in SFADCo as a projects officer with authority to deal with certain works in a supervisory capacity and liaise with people who carried out the work.
Mr O'Higgins said the State would set out to prove that Mr Mulkere deceived these groups into giving him sums of money which he then disbursed in various ways other than he told them the sums would be used.
The State also alleged he defrauded SFADCo by producing certificates claiming work had been done in order to get cheques from the semi state company to repay the contractors.
The hearing continues before Judge Kevin Haugh. The jury of 10 women and two men has been told the case could take several weeks.