Flynn faces questioning by tribunal over payment claim

The European Commissioner, Mr Padraig Flynn, is expected to be called before the Flood Tribunal to answer an allegation made by Mr Tom Gilmartin, the property developer.

An allegation that Mr Flynn received £50,000 intended for Fianna Fail in the 1980s was contained in an unsigned statement supplied to the planning tribunal by Mr Gilmartin some time ago. He provided a signed statement on matters under investigation by the tribunal when members of the tribunal's legal team visited him in Britain last Wednesday.

Contacted at his home in Luton, outside London, last night, Mr Gilmartin refused to make any comment to The Irish Times on his alleged payment to Mr Flynn. "I don't need to fill you in on what is in my statement", he said.

All attempts to contact Mr Flynn in Brussels yesterday to clarify his attitude to the allegation were unsuccessful. A Commission spokeswoman insisted that she was not empowered to speak for Mr Flynn on a private matter of this kind. She reiterated that he had made it clear that he did not wish to elaborate further on the issue. The Irish Times has been seeking comment from Mr Flynn since the allegation was first published.

Meanwhile, the Sunday In- dependent yesterday published a faxed message from Mr Flynn in which the Commissioner stated that his written answers to written questions the week before had been "misrepresented". Mr Flynn had then denied that he was the recipient of a cheque for £50,000 from Mr Gilmartin which had been intended for Fianna Fail.

In another development, the Fianna Fail TD for Dublin West, Mr Liam Lawlor, said last night that he would be consulting his accountant today to make sure that he had "fully complied with the tax aspect" of contributions of £3,500 a month, over three or four months in the late 1980s, from Mr Gilmartin.

Mr Lawlor insisted that the monthly contributions - which are bigger than a TD's Dail salary then or now - were political donations, not consultancy fees. He said that he had prepared demographic and economic information on Dublin for Arlington Securities - with which Mr Gilmartin had worked on developing a site - at the time.

When the Sunday Business Post established that the contributions were not listed on the register of interests of Dublin County Council in the late 1980s, Mr Lawlor maintained to The Irish Times that he had been asked if Arlington had consulted him, and his answer had specified a "consultancy fee".

Last night, Mr Lawlor said that if the development was not in his electoral area of Dublin County Council, there was no potential for conflict of interest and no question of registering it.

Mr Flynn, meanwhile, has caused considerable confusion over his public responses to date to the allegation that he received a cheque for £50,000 from Mr Gilmartin which had been intended for Fianna Fail. Both the Taoiseach and the Fianna Fail party have refused to make any comment on the allegation, stating that the Flood Tribunal will deal with it.

In a handwritten statement faxed to the Sunday Independ- ent last Monday evening, Mr Flynn said that the newspaper had "misrepresented the written answers I gave to your written questions and in the process misled your readers". He would not, therefore, countenance any further queries, he said, adding: "You have done me a grave disservice."

Answers to five of the eight questions posed by the Sunday Independent to Mr Flynn yesterday week elicited the response: "See answer 4." Question 4 asked the Commissioner if he was the recipient of a cheque for £50,000 - intended as a contribution to Fianna Fail - from Mr Gilmartin. Mr Flynn's response was: "No."

Mr Flynn was minister for the environment between March 1987 and November 1991 and joint honorary treasurer of Fianna Fail in the late 1980s and early 1990s.