Former Dublin planning official George Redmond is seeking to have the State pay his legal costs - which could be as high as €1 million - of appearing before the Mahon planning tribunal. Mary Carolan reports.
No figure for those costs was put before the tribunal yesterday but the final bill could reach €1 million, given the extent of Mr Redmond's involvement with the tribunal.
The fact that it found Mr Redmond had received corrupt payments from developers Joseph Murphy jnr and Michael Bailey, and had hindered and obstructed the tribunal with false claims, should be taken into account when determining his entitlement to costs, Mr Des O'Neill SC, for the tribunal, said yesterday.
Tribunal chairman Judge Alan Mahon reserved his decision to next month.
Mr Redmond (80), whose conviction on a charge of corruption was overturned by the Court of Criminal Appeal last July, gave evidence before the tribunal over 15 days and was involved in the Gogarty module of the tribunal, which ran from January 1999 to June 2000.
In its third interim report of September 2002, the tribunal made a number of findings against Mr Redmond.
It held that Mr Redmond was paid not less than £12,246 in 1988 by Mr Murphy for devising a strategy which resulted in service charges and levies relating to lands owned by two Murphy companies at Forrest Road, Swords, Co Dublin, being fixed at a 1983 level after a planning permission relevant to those lands expired in June 1988.
The tribunal said it was satisfied this was a corrupt payment.
The tribunal also found that Mr Bailey had made three cash payments to Mr Redmond amounting to £16,000-€20,000 in the 18 months before July 1989.
The tribunal was satisfied those were corrupt payments made in circumstances which could give rise to a reasonable inference that they were made to influence him in the performance of his duties as assistant city and county manager for Dublin.
From inquiries into Mr Redmond's bank accounts, the tribunal also found that Mr Redmond was lodging sums to his accounts which were multiples of his salary from Dublin Corporation.
At the time the tribunal began, Mr Redmond had cash deposits of €350,000, of which €194,000 was held in off-shore accounts. Mr Redmond had acknowledged the money paid to him was by property owners, developers and builders in the Dublin area to whom he gave advice.
In submissions yesterday, Mr Anthony Harris, solicitor for Mr Redmond, said his instructions throughout the tribunal hearings were that Mr Redmond had told the truth to the tribunal in his detailed evidence. He had also co-operated behind the scenes with the tribunal and given considerable information to it.
The tribunal concluded Mr Redmond had hindered its work because his evidence had conflicted with that of Mr James Gogarty, Mr Harris said.
The solicitor added that initially Mr Redmond had been represented by senior and junior counsel.
For much of the time Mr Redmond had been represented solely by Mr Harris on a monthly retainer, which was "modest" compared with the daily rates paid to counsel.
Urging Judge Mahon to look to Mr Redmond's personal circumstances, Mr Harris said he was aged 80 and had served eight months in prison on foot of a conviction overturned on appeal.
Mr Redmond had "paid a higher price than anyone on foot of his dealings with the tribunal", Mr Harris added.
His financial resources had been taken in legal fees and tax and he had to sell his house.
