Solicitor says Burke was given site for Swords house

Pressure on the former Fianna Fail minister, Mr Ray Burke, has increased following evidence to the Flood tribunal that in the 1970s a building company gave him the site for his house in Swords for nothing. Last year Mr Burke sold the house, Briargate, which later became famous as the place where Mr James Gogarty gave the politician £30,000, and surrounding land for £3 million.

Mr Esmonde Reilly, the solicitor who handled the sale of the site by Oak Park Developments, said no money changed hands. Oak Park is part-owned by the builder Mr Tom Brennan, who with his partner Mr Joe McGowan has donated more than £150,000 to Mr Burke.

Lawyers for Mr Burke angrily denied the allegation, claiming Mr Reilly was trying to "vilify" their client. Oak Park and Mr Burke both claim he paid £15,000 directly to the company, although they have no documentation to support this.

Mr Reilly also alleged that Mr Burke's solicitor, Mr Oliver Conlon, told him to "bury or lose" the file on the transaction. This occurred in 1974, several weeks after Mr Burke's name was first linked in a newspaper article to planning payments from Brennan and McGowan.

"It was the most extraordinary phone call I have ever received in 32 years of practice," Mr Reilly told the tribunal. He placed the file in a sealed envelope and stored it in a filing cabinet "lest I be contacted by a Garda investigation". He did not report it "to any living soul" until contacted by the tribunal last month.

"This information has been in my head for the past 27 years. I hoped it would never have to come out. I chose not to get involved. I didn't want to have to say the things I have said about a colleague here today," Mr Reilly said.

Mr Conlon emphatically denied the allegation in the witness box. He said he did not know Mr Reilly and had never spoken to him. Mr Jack Foley, a director of Oak Park, agreed that the sale to Mr Burke was extraordinary, but added that it was "a one-off for a man more or less employed by us". Mr Foley said Briargate was designed by "Mr Burke's architect", Mr John Keenan. However, he later agreed that Mr Keenan had carried out work for his companies.

Mr Foley claimed Mr Burke paid his company directly with three instalments of £5,000 from a building society.