FF councillor denies receiving #12,000 from Dunlop

A Fianna Fáil councillor, Mr Sean Gilbride, was paid £12,000 by the lobbyist Mr Frank Dunlop in connection with the rezoning of Quarryale in 1991, it has been claimed.

Mr Gilbride told Mr Aidan Redmond, for Mr Dunlop, yesterday that he disputed this allegation. He said the only payment he got from Mr Dunlop was a donation of £2,000 during the local elections that year.

He lodged some of this but gave the rest away to local soccer and cricket clubs and the Tidy Towns committee in Skerries.

Earlier, he denied an allegation that Mr Dunlop paid him £2,000 in return for his vote on the rezoning of lands at Drumnigh, near Portmarnock in north Co Dublin, in 1993.

Mr Gilbride said he had provided the tribunal with his accounts going back for 35 years. There wasn't a payment there he wouldn't be able to account for.

Mr Gilbride was one of five councillors who signed the motion to rezone the Drumnigh lands, which are currently under investigation by the tribunal.

Yesterday he said he had no great recollection of meeting Mr Dunlop about these lands and he certainly didn't receive any payment in relation to them.

He voted for the motion after consulting other local councillors "to see if it was all right", he has told the tribunal.

Earlier, the tribunal heard that the family of the late Mr Cyril Gallagher, a councillor, was concerned about media reports claiming he left behind large amounts of unexplained savings.

Of £60,000 left in Mr Gallagher's account in An Post, less than £40,000 represented the cost of share certificates, according to Mr Giles Montgomery, solicitor for the estate of Mr Gallagher. The balance was interest earned.

Mr Montgomery said Mr Gallagher was in receipt of a pension, as well as council and health board expenses, until his death in 2000.

He had sufficient income available to purchase the share certificates held in the account.