Fianna Fail yesterday started interviewing former and current party councillors as part of its internal investigation to establish if any of its public representatives accepted money for planning votes.
A Fianna Fail committee interviewed a dozen councillors at party headquarters in Upper Mount Street as part of its inquiry, expected to take two to three weeks.
Meanwhile, Fine Gael today begins its investigation into planning decisions taken in the 1980s and 1990s. A party commission hopes to interview 61 public representatives between now and Sunday evening, and an interim report will be presented to the party leader, Mr John Bruton, on Monday.
Both inquiries have been prompted following the evidence given by the lobbyist, Mr Frank Dunlop, to the Flood tribunal.
The Fianna Fail inquiry is being undertaken by its Standards in Public Life Committee, established under its new code of ethics agreed at the recent ardfheis. The committee is chaired by Dr Rory O'Hanlon and includes three TDs, Mr Michael Ahern, Mr Dick Roche and Mr David Andrews and the party general secretary, Mr Martin Macken.
Unlike Fine Gael, Fianna Fail is confining its inquiry to the controversial 1991 Quarryvale rezoning decisions. More than 30 councillors will be interviewed as part of its investigation.
A total of 61 Fine Gael councillors elected to Dublin local authorities in 1985, 1991 and 1997 will be interviewed over the next four days by a commission chaired by Mr James Nugent SC. The commission is also made up of the Fine Gael general secretary, Mr Tom Curran, solicitor to the party, Mr Kevin O'Higgins, and chairman of trustees, Mr Buddy Kiernan.
The interviews are expected to finish on Sunday evening, and Mr Nugent will present his report to the party leader on Monday. The report will also be passed on to the Flood tribunal. All 61 councillors were written to in the last week asking them to attend the interviews.
The councillors will be asked four questions: whether they were asked by any developer or lobbyist on behalf of a developer for assistance in rezonings, and if assistance was given; whether they were asked to get support for rezoning from any other party councillor; and if they were aware of any allegations of any other Fine Gael councillor receiving payments for planning decisions.
On April 19th Mr Dunlop told the Flood tribunal that he paid 15 county councillors a total of £112,000 in connection with the rezoning of a shopping-centre site in west Dublin.
Mr Dunlop said the payments ranged from £500 to more than £48,000 to unnamed county councillors around the time of the local elections in June 1991. He said the money was later reimbursed by his client, the developer of the centre at Quarryvale, Mr Owen O'Callaghan.
Mr Dunlop is due to resume his evidence at the Tribunal next Tuesday and is expected to give more detail then about the payments to the 15 councillors.
Both Fianna Fail and Fine Gael have said that if it emerges that any sitting public representatives or party members took money for planning favours, they would be expelled from the organisation.
Meanwhile, the Labour Party will publish three Private Members' Bills on Monday in response to the recent political revelations: a Bill to allow for a ban on corporate donations, an anti-corruption Bill and a Bill requiring all election candidates to produce tax clearance certificates.