Former Fianna Fáil deputy Mr Liam Lawlor received £57,500 from the developers of a project at Bachelor's Walk, the tribunal heard yesterday. He said that the money was a political donation.
In his opening statement on the Quarryvale module, Mr John Gallagher SC, for the tribunal, said that the developer, Mr Tom Gilmartin, would say that Mr Lawlor also wanted a 20 per cent stake in the development.
In the mid-1980s, Mr Gilmartin, a Sligo-born, British-based businessman, had earmarked the Dublin city site for a large shopping complex and bus depot. He joined forces with British company Arlington Securities, which was going to develop it.
In a separate venture to develop a shopping centre at Quarryvale, west Dublin, Mr Gilmartin was introduced to Mr Lawlor. Mr Gilmartin said Mr Lawlor later arrived unexpectedly at a meeting with Arlington representatives and introduced himself as the person appointed by the government to take care of the Bachelor's Walk development.
Arlington later told Mr Gilmartin they had appointed Mr Lawlor as a consultant and asked him to pay him on its behalf. Payments of about £3,500 a month by Mr Gilmartin began in June 1988. However, these ended in the following January when Mr Gilmartin claimed Mr Lawlor turned up at his bank in Blanchardstown and requested £10,000 from Mr Gilmartin's account. Mr Lawlor allegedly told the bank that the payment had been authorised by Mr Gilmartin.
Mr Gallagher said the tribunal had established that monthly payments of £3,500 continued to be paid into an account controlled by Mr Lawlor until November 1989, but they did not appear to have come from Mr Gilmartin's account. The tribunal also recorded an April 1989 payment of £33,000 sterling from Arlington to Economic Reports Ltd, a company controlled by Mr Lawlor.
When the Bachelor's Walk plan was being mooted, the government was keen to promote urban renewal. Part of the site was designated under the urban renewal scheme, but the developers wanted to have the entire site included. A meeting on the issue was held with Mr Pádraig Flynn, then minister for the environment, in November 1987.
On December 18th of that year the government agreed that the boundaries of the urban renewal scheme would be extended and the time limit for qualifying expenditure increased.
