Redmond admits 'huge' additional income

Former assistant Dublin city and county manager George Redmond has told the tribunal he enjoyed a "huge" income outside his Corporation salary for 30 years up to his retirement in 1989.

Redmond accepted the money was given because of his planning expertise, which he described as "exhaustive".

He also admitted that the reason he had set up bank accounts under the Irish version of his name and in Spain, Belfast and England was to conceal this revenue from the Inspector of Taxes. He said he wanted to avoid paying tax, "like a lot of other people at this time".

Before questioning Redmond about his contacts with Mr Tom Gilmartin - whose allegations are the subject of investigations in this module of the tribunal - tribunal lawyers reviewed the evidence the 80-year-old gave to the tribunal in 1999, when he first revealed that he had received large payments from landowners and other business interests.

Between 1965 and 1971 his average income was over £2,000 per annum and he was able to pay for his house without taking out a mortgage.

In 1971 he had savings of about £20,000 and was able to move to a new house, he told the tribunal on this occasion.

Between 1971 and 1981 his savings increased by £200,000 and his annual savings in this period amounted to over five times his yearly salary.

In 1983 he took out Irish Life savings bonds to a value of £100,000 and was able to pay for these with cash.

Asked in 1999 for an explanation of these payments, Redmond had told the tribunal that he had a good understanding of planning and that some people had valued this. He said he never did "anything" with the money apart from putting it into bank accounts.

Yesterday, Redmond said he accepted his earlier evidence. He had an "exhaustive" expertise in planning. In fact, last week he even had to correct tribunal counsel Mr John Gallagher on a matter the lawyer had interpreted.

However, the witness said he had never sought any of these payments.

They simply came about as a result of "something"; a great value was placed on his opinions in those days.

In 1965, he began work in the planning and development department of the Corporation, he told Ms Patricia Dillon SC for the tribunal. This was a year after the new Planning and Development Act had come into force. Many people regarded this legislation as a "mysterious thing" and he developed an expertise in it.

Ms Dillon pointed out that when Redmond applied for a job with Green Property in 1985 he claimed his expertise in planning in the council "I command" was "probably unrivalled".

This meant that anything he asked for in the local authority, provided it was legal, would have been given, counsel suggested.

However, Redmond said this was "utter nonsense". When you applied for a job you "gilded the lily".

Ms Dillon said Redmond, by his own account, had been involved in making thousands of planning decisions in the 1970s. "Do you think that any of those decisions might have had anything to do with the vast sums of money that were being funnelled towards you during that period?" Redmond replied: "I am certain they were."

In later evidence, Redmond denied Mr Gilmartin's claim that former Fianna Fáil TD Mr Liam Lawlor sought £100,000 on his behalf.

He never heard Mr Lawlor discuss anything of this nature, he said, and he "most certainly" did not provide Mr Gilmartin with a map of land ownership in Quarryvale, west Dublin, as the developer has alleged.

He also insisted he met Mr Gilmartin together with Mr Lawlor when they came to his office in June 1988, not May 1988 as Mr Gilmartin had claimed.

He didn't know Mr Gilmartin and had never heard of him. The meeting wasn't a "tea and biscuits affair" but he got the impression that Mr Gilmartin was a major developer with a long track record in the UK.