New evidence has emerged at the planning tribunal which casts some light on Mr George Redmond's role in planning matters involving lands owned by the Murphy group.
Advice provided by the former assistant Dublin city and county manager to the Murphy group in 1988 ultimately cost the council £120,000 in planning-related fees, it is now apparent. Mr Redmond may also have been present at top-level internal meetings in the council at which the status of the Murphy-owned lands at Forest Road, Swords, was discussed, according to one of his colleagues.
These were the exceptional chinks of light cast on Mr Redmond's relations with the Murphy group in the course of a brusque cross-examination of Mr James Gogarty in Dublin Castle yesterday. Otherwise, there was little concordance between Mr Redmond's and Mr Gogarty's stories.
Both men are past their threescore-and-ten, and both have a lifelong career in development in Dublin behind them, yet they seem to inhabit separate universes. Neither can agree on when they first met, who introduced them or the subject of their various conversations.
Although both agree that Mr Redmond received two payments from employees of the Murphy group, there is no agreement on why and when the money was paid or how much was involved.
Mr Redmond, his arms crossed and his tanned brow permanently furrowed, attended the tribunal for the first time in weeks, while his solicitor, Mr Anthony Harris, opened his cross-examination of Mr Gogarty. Joseph Murphy Structural Engineering obtained planning permission to build 206 houses at Forest Road in 1983. In return, it was to pay a levy of £122,460 for roads and sewers. Five years later, the planning permission was running out and no building had started.
What happened at this time is at the core of the tribunal's investigations. The company wrote to the council, offering to pay the levy provided it would not be in creased when a fresh planning application was made. The council agreed and the company paid the levy, at 1983 rates, in June 1988.
Yesterday however, Mr Harris said internal memos suggested the council would have been entitled to charge higher rates had it not agreed to the JMSE proposal. A statement furnished to the tribunal by Fingal County Council said the amount which would have been due on a new planning permission was £243,860, £120,000 more than JMSE paid.
This tallies with Mr Gogarty's allegation that he was told by Mr Redmond that the levy would more than double if a new planning permission was lodged. Mr Gogarty has alleged that Mr Redmond sought a 10 per cent "bung" for his help - equivalent to £12,000 on these calculations - and that he drafted a letter for JMSE to send to the council.
Mr Redmond denies receiving any money for planning favours, but has acknowledged getting £25,000 "hello money" for introducing Mr Gogarty to Mr Bailey, who eventually bought the Forest Road lands for £1.3 million.
Mr Harris conceded yesterday that Mr Redmond provided the information for the letter or may even have given Mr Gogarty the text, but that this wasn't the letter eventually sent to the council.
Mr Al Smith, the planning officer who responded to the letter from JMSE, says in a statement he has no recollection of dealing with the matter in 1988 and had no dealings with Mr Gogarty. He says there was unease in the planning department regarding the legality of the basis on which levies were calculated. He would take any reasonable and legitimate step to avoid a legal challenge.
He did not receive any representation from any person, including Mr Redmond, in relation to receiving the £122,460 levy. The matter may have been discussed at a development co-ordinating conference held in the county council offices in O'Connell Street at which Mr Redmond may have been present.
Mr Harris raised some discrepancies in the accounts given by Mr Gogarty to the gardai and in his affidavit. In particular, there was no mention of Mr Redmond seeking a 10 per cent cut on the Forest Road lands, and no mention of the allegation that Mr Redmond "stuck his neck out" on the demolition of Turvey House. Mr Harris said the demolition of Turvey, a 17th-century listed building in north Co Dublin, did nothing to help the Murphy group develop the lands on which it was located.