FF senator gives conflicting details of payments

Fianna Fáil Senator Don Lydon has become the latest politician to give conflicting accounts of the payments he received to the tribunal and to his party inquiry three years ago.

Mr Lydon, the first sitting member of the Oireachtas to face allegations of bribery from the witness box, told the tribunal yesterday he got £2,500 from Monarch Properties in 1992.

While he acknowledged to the Fianna Fáil inquiry in May 2000 that he had received a number of donations from Monarch between 1991 and 1999, the amounts disclosed varied between £400 and £1,000.

Mr Lydon also told the tribunal yesterday of two £5,000 cheques he received during the Seanad election campaign in the same year. These were not disclosed to the Fianna Fáil inquiry, but since the donors were not named publicly, it is not clear whether they would have come under its terms of reference.

Asked why people had given him such sums, he said that the donors just offered to give him "a few bob". He agreed that one of the donors was seeking to have lands rezoned at the time and he had proposed the motion for him.

Mr Lydon defended his acceptance of payments from Mr Frank Dunlop and developers, saying it never occurred to him to refuse them. Once an election was under way, he wouldn't care if the money he got came from the Orange Order, he said. But "if it came from the Monk or some gangster, then I wouldn't take it".

He never felt compromised by such payments, nor was he bothered by any perception that he was compromised.

Mr Dunlop has accused Mr Lydon of taking a £3,000 bribe in return for his vote on a rezoning motion in 1992. Mr Lydon, who accepts that he received a number of legitimate political donations from Mr Dunlop, denies the allegation.

He dismissed Mr Dunlop's account of the alleged handover of this money as "ridiculous" and "off the wall". "It never happened," he told Mr John Gallagher SC, for the tribunal.

He also denied that Fianna Fáil operated a whip system on the council or that members were ever compelled to vote in a particular way on rezoning motions. Councillors could do what they wanted, although a consensus position was reached at party meetings beforehand.

In a whip situation you couldn't vote against your party, he said. A check of the council records would show that Fianna Fáil councillors had voted "one way and the other way" on rezoning motions.

Mr Gallagher said the late Cllr Pat Dunne used to "whip in" his Fianna Fáil colleagues from Conway's pub.

"He might have whipped them in but he had no control over how they voted," Mr Lydon replied. Only the Labour Party had a whip, and it voted "against anything".

Mr Lydon dismissed as "rubbish" claims that councillors had rezoned too much land during this period. Subsequent events, especially an increased demand for housing, had proven them right.

He said complete strangers would give him money. He got a £500 cheque from a man he'd met in a pub in Clonee months earlier. On another occasion, he canvassed a house in Mount Merrion and a man "with a towel around him" handed him a £100 cheque after coming out of the shower.

He said he knew Mr Dunlop from the council, where the lobbyist was always "tipping about". Mr Dunlop was "a little pompous" and was telling councillors how to vote.

Mr Lydon described the atmosphere in the council chamber as "wild" and "chaotic". There were people "pushing and shoving" in the hall and you'd be "praying that you wouldn't see anyone you knew".

Meetings became so tedious, with some motions taking years to come up, that apathy set in and councillors spent more time in Conways or the Royal Dublin Hotel.