The former Government press secretary, Mr P.J. Mara, has said he will address claims that he sought payment in return for securing a commercial radio licence when he appears before the Flood tribunal. Mr Mara served as Government press secretary during the Haughey era, and is currently Fianna Fail director of elections.
He said the allegations, made by Mr James Stafford, the cofounder of Century Radio, to the Flood tribunal last month, came as a complete surprise.
Mr Mara makes his first public comment on the matter in an interview in the latest edition of Magill magazine. However, he did not go into any detail of the allegations or his rebuttal of them.
"Anything I have to say about this I will say to Flood and his team at the tribunal," he said. "And when I have said it I will never speak about it ever again.
"I don't mind saying it was a shock, of course it was, it came like a bolt out of the blue. The people I work with have been enormously supportive. I'm just getting on with my business and looking after my clients," said Mr Mara, who now runs his own public relations consultancy.
Mr Mara did not go into details of the allegations made by Mr Stafford.
In his evidence to the tribunal, Mr Stafford alleged that the former Fianna Fail minister, Mr Ray Burke, and Mr Mara had sought payments of up to £90,000 in return for the award of broadcasting licences. The allegations, which first emerged during the opening statement by a tribunal lawyer on the investigations into Mr Burke's conduct as minister for communications in the late 1980s and 1990s, were strenuously denied by Mr Burke and Mr Mara.
Mr Mara said in the interview that the first he heard of the allegations were when tribunal lawyers wrote to him around June 9th or 10th, and he had responded within three days.