Payments because agent acted for vendors denied

Auctioneer Mr John Finnegan has denied that builders Brennan and McGowan paid him money offshore because he acted for vendors who sold land to the two builders.

Mr Pat Hanratty SC, for the tribunal, put it to Mr Finnegan that Brennan and McGowan made payments to him because they believed it was to their advantage to do so, and it was to their advantage was because he was acting for the vendors in each transaction.

Mr Dominick Hussey SC, for Mr Finnegan, interrupted to ask if his client was being accused of professional misconduct. Mr Hanratty said he was exploring the reasons for the payments. Mr Finnegan had depicted himself as a "hapless individual on the periphery of things" who had been asked to get involved in some "vague, unspecified scheme", but a pattern was emerging which showed Mr Finnegan was paid money offshore at the time of the closing of the sales.

Mr Hanratty said that in the first transaction, involving lands at Monkstown, Mr Finnegan said he had invested £50,000 and he was later paid £105,000 in Jersey. In the second transaction, at Newtownpark Avenue in Blackrock, he said he invested £33,000 and he received £67,000.

In the third deal, in Donnybrook, he said he paid in £33,000 and he received £101,000.

That Brennan and McGowan had made these payments was "not unrelated" to the fact that Mr Finnegan acted for the vendor in each transaction, he suggested. "That is not the case, sir," Mr Finnegan replied.

Mr Hanratty said Brennan and McGowan were not making a "charitable donation" when they paid the money. They were "the kind of people who wanted value for their money".

Mr Justice Flood said he found it hard to believe that anyone would put money into a scheme without knowing the prospects for success. Was the witness saying that he had been asked to put in substantial amounts of money and yet he did not know what the end product would be? Mr Finnegan had decades of experience as a valuer and was "in the front rank" of people who were capable of putting a price on a piece of land.

In a fourth transaction, at Tritonville Road, Mr Finnegan said he was not aware he had invested in the deal. Mr Hanratty said it was "an extraordinary thing" to get a return of £27,000 on an investment of nothing.