Ministers deny claim on Burke resignation plan

Ministers Dermot Ahern and Mary Harney have denied any involvement in an alleged plan to pay former cabinet colleague Ray Burke £700,000 to resign quietly in 1998, the Mahon tribunal heard yesterday.

Property developer Tom Gilmartin told the tribunal yesterday that he was told by an informant and by solicitor Séamus Maguire that a golden handshake was arranged for Mr Burke so that he would resign his position as minister for foreign affairs and "forestall the setting up of the planning tribunal".

He said he was told there was a meeting in the office of Mr Maguire with Mr Burke and a consortium of developers, including JMSE and Michael Bailey. The aim of the meeting was to try to persuade Mr Burke to resign and "a sum of £700,000 was mentioned".

He said he was told that the then minister for social and family affairs, Mr Ahern, was involved in the deal. "Mr Dermot Ahern was the gentleman that was trying to sort it out . . . Mary Harney was aware of what was going on," he said.

Counsel for Mr Ahern and Ms Harney denied the allegation.

Hugh Mohan SC, for Mr Ahern, said his client vehemently denied the allegation and took great exception to it. "As far as he is concerned, it simply never happened," he said.

Richard Lyons SC, for Ms Harney, said that his client rejected what was said about her.

Mr Gilmartin told tribunal counsel Pat Quinn SC that he had intended to withdraw from co-operating with the tribunal at the end of 1998 after discussing it with his family.

They had told him he was "making a spectacle" of himself and that and it would "achieve nothing".

But he changed his mind after EU commissioner Pádraig Flynn appeared on the Late Late Showin January 1999. "This gentleman was pleading with me to do him a favour by lying, then he goes on television when he thinks I'm out of the way, to slag me and my family," he said. "I didn't quite care what he said about me, but when he brought my wife into it, I took exception to it."

He also related details of a meeting with property developer Owen O'Callaghan, solicitor John Deane and a number of bankers in September 1991. He said Mr Deane made it clear to him that anyone who tried to develop a site in Ireland without knowing that politicians had to be bribed was naive.

He said there was a reference to somebody who went off to England "with no arse in his trousers".

"Which was incorrect, of course. I was quite well-dressed when I left, thanks to my parents," he said.

Both Mr Quinn and Judge Alan Mahon tried yesterday to establish the identity of Mr Gilmartin's source.

Mr Gilmartin described the informant as being an Irish man with an educated, but not a pronounced, regional accent. He said that he definitely was not Denis "Starry" O'Brien, the man who had alleged that he paid a cheque to Taoiseach Bertie Ahern on behalf of Mr O'Callaghan at a football match.

"Sure I was warned not to have anything to do with him," he said. I never spoke to Mr O'Brien, never heard of him, knew nothing whatsoever about him."

He said that the informant would not come forward to the tribunal because "it was more than his life was worth".

The tribunal also heard evidence from Finian Matthews, principal officer at the Department of the Environment.

Tribunal counsel Patricia Dillon asked him if he had any idea what had happened to two letters relating to former minister for the environment Pádraig Flynn's decision to grant tax designation to Blanchardstown shopping centre.

Judge Mahon asked if Mr Matthews thought they had been misfiled, purposely never filed, or filed and subsequently removed.

Mr Matthews, who was not in the department at the time, said each explanation was a possibility, but that it would not necessarily serve any purpose, since they were still on file at the Department of Finance.