Analysis: Frank Dunlop's evidence to yesterday's session of the Flood tribunal is assessed by Paul Cullen.
Picture the scene, with the assistance of Frank Dunlop. It is May Day, 1992, and the man across the table is a Fianna Fáil senator of over a decade's standing, a psychologist dealing with depression and alcoholism at St John of God Hosptial, and the secretary of the Association of Papal Knights in Ireland.
In his career in the Oireachtas, he has grappled with the big issues - divorce, abortion and the like. He was there in 1997 when the House voted for the Flood tribunal. You couldn't imagine anyone with a firmer grasp of the moral high ground and the ramparts of the establishment.
Yet what does this man do on meeting a lobbyist for a land company, according to Mr Dunlop? Answer: he demands £5,000 for his vote on a rezoning motion on Dublin County Council, said Mr Dunlop. There was, as the witness averred yesterday, "no other word" for it other than bribery.
Mr Lydon vehemently denies Mr Dunlop's allegation and he will get his chance to do so in the witness box. But yesterday, Mr Dunlop's claim to have bunged £3,000 in cellophane-wrapped cash to the serving senator only gained from the detail he provided. As for Mr Lydon, serious questions must now hang over his continued presence in the Oireachtas.
Using his diary as an aide-mémoire and his precise command of the English language as a tool, Mr Dunlop painted a picture of a greedy, grasping politician who didn't wait to be asked if he wanted a bribe. And he provided details of dates, times, venues and meetings.
"I did not ask for a receipt and he did not offer one," he noted drily. According to Mr Dunlop's portrait, Mr Lydon's performance was bettered only by that of Fine Gael's Cllr Tom Hand, who asked for £10,000 to sign the motion to rezone the Paisley Park land in Carrickmines, and settled for £3,000. The late Cllr Hand had a "mantra", according to Mr Dunlop, which went "you're acting for [whoever\], you're going to make millions from my signature and I'm not going to sign this unless I get something first".
Then there was Mr Liam Lawlor, who was well and truly stitched up by Mr Dunlop yesterday. He said Mr Lawlor was the first to tell him he'd have to pay councillors for their votes. And once Mr Dunlop jumped on the bribery train, he said Mr Lawlor was there along the way to advise him how to operate the system.
Mr Dunlop says his diary shows the two men had numerous meetings throughout the 1990s; Mr Lawlor, it is worth noting, lost his council seat in the local elections in June 1991. As for the attempt to rezone Paisley Park in 1992, it was Mr Lawlor who supplied the motion and even the accompanying map that Mr Dunlop submitted to the council, said Mr Dunlop.
But Mr Lawlor's involvement may run deeper. Mr Dunlop says he was told by the TD's associate Mr Jim Kennedy that Mr Lawlor held an interest in the Paisley Park land. This interest was registered in Liechtenstein, an offshore tax haven where the politician has extensive financial interests.
Yet in May 1991, Mr Lawlor voted against most of his Fianna Fáil colleagues and against proposals that would have favoured the rezoning of the land. So why on earth would he vote against his own alleged financial interests?
Mr Dunlop suggested an answer to this riddle. This answer paints Mr Lawlor as an artful manipulator, better able to exploit the planning process than anyone else, and mindful of saving his own electoral skin. Mr Lawlor knew the real fight over the rezoning of the land would come later, when councillors got their chance to rezone the land - or so Mr Dunlop claims. With the local elections held in June 1991, the TD's anti-rezoning stance a month earlier may have allowed him to curry favour with the voters during an election dominated by planning controversies.
Mr Lawlor will doubtless tell the tribunal a different story when he comes to give evidence in the new year.