Fitzgerald denies promise to O'Callaghan

Former Dublin city manager John Fitzgerald denied yesterday that he promised Cork developer Owen O'Callaghan that a cap on the size of a shopping centre development at Quarryvale would be lifted when he became manager of South Dublin County Council.

Mr Fitzgerald said he was "annoyed and concerned" when the suggestion was made at the tribunal in July last year.

He also denied that he was influenced by Mr O'Callaghan when he met him on four occasions prior to a crucial vote on the Quarryvale development, now Liffey Valley Shopping Centre.

The vote, on December 17th, 1992, confirmed the zoning to develop the centre, but capped its size at 250,000 sq ft.

The tribunal heard that Mr O'Callaghan wrote to his bank following the vote and told them he was not concerned about the cap because when Mr Fitzgerald became county manager of south Dublin, the cap would be lifted.

Mr Fitzgerald said he did not give such an assurance, and had in fact recommended that the cap be applied.

The former Dublin city manager acknowledged that he knew Mr O'Callaghan before he became area manager of south Dublin in 1991, having met him while working in Cork County Council.

Counsel for the tribunal, Pat Quinn SC, also read into the record other documents in which Mr O'Callaghan implied that he had some influence with Mr Fitzgerald.

"Mr O'Callaghan was of the view that he had a special relationship with you," Mr Quinn said.

"If he did, he had no justification in doing so," Mr Fitzgerald said. "My relationship with Mr O'Callaghan, as with every other developer, was a purely professional relationship."

Mr O'Callaghan had also told his bank that he had been careful to cultivate his relationship with Mr Fitzgerald, Mr Quinn said.

"Every developer in Dublin was probably careful about how they cultivated their relationships with me," Mr Fitzgerald said.

He said he could not stop any developer from writing about it, but he could not say he was happy about it.

Mr Quinn asked Mr Fitzgerald about the meetings he had with Mr O'Callaghan prior to the council vote in December 1993. After being shown diary entries of former lobbyist Frank Dunlop and of Dublin County Council planner Willie Murray, Mr Fitzgerald agreed that the meetings had taken place.

Asked if a particular meeting with Mr O'Callaghan, on December 1st, 1992, had influenced what he had written in his report on Quarryvale to councillors "the very next day", he said it had not.

"I'd be quite clear in my mind that any conversations with Mr O'Callaghan wouldn't have influenced our views in any shape or form," he said.

However, he also said that when he took up his position as area manager, he believed that the Quarryvale development was already a "fait accompli" and for him to "try and unpick it would be futile".