Archaic legislation and draconian libel laws aided and abetted corruption, writes Frank McDonald, Environment Editor
In 1989, shortly before he retired as de facto Dublin county manager, George Redmond approached me after a council meeting.
"Do you know something?" he said, "we never get enough credit for all the wonderful parks we've created in Co Dublin. I'll tell you what, yourself and myself will do a tour of them all and you can write about it in The Irish Times."
Redmond wanted to be remembered for having done the State some service, even though the driving force behind Marlay Park, Malahide Castle, Newbridge and Ardgillan demesnes was Mr Michael Lynch, the council's parks superintendent.
For more than a decade, the manager had simply gone along with Mr Lynch's ambitious schemes and now he was looking for the credit.
But there was another reason why I didn't take up Redmond's offer of a grand tour - I knew then that he was corrupt. Nobody who knew or suspected corruption spoke out. The media were safely muzzled by still-draconian libel laws, so all we could do was hint at it, without naming names.
Some senior officials, familiar with the manager's orders, were undoubtedly aware there was something fishy going on, but the Irish culture against "informing" prevailed in the end.
Mr Michael Mulcahy TD (FF), then a young headstrong councillor, tried to break this omerta. At a meeting of Dublin City Council's planning committee in 1989, he blurted out that there was corruption in high places and called for an inquiry. The meeting was promptly suspended and he was forced by one senior official to withdraw his allegation.
Although the official involved, who had pinned Mr Mulcahy to a coatrack outside the toilet in City Hall, must have heard the rumours about George Redmond, it was a subject that couldn't be mentioned.
The attitude of senior officials was akin to the Three Brass Monkeys; none of them wanted even to think about prising open this potential can of worms.
A Garda investigation in 1989, led by Det Garda Supt Brendan Burns, was held into claims that the planning process was tainted by corruption, but was inconclusive, not just because no hard evidence could be found but also because Supt Burns and his team were hampered by archaic anti-corruption legislation that hadn't been updated since 1916.
Another minus was that the Minister for Justice at the time was Ray Burke, who had indulged in quite a bit of planning corruption himself.
Only two prosecutions were brought - one against a building by-law official, the late Thomas Phipps, and the other against Mr William Tobin, then chief planning officer with An Bord Pleanála. Mr Tobin was acquitted.
Things went somewhat quiet after that, although the dragon refused to lie down and die.
The Irish Times returned to the issue of land rezoning in Co Dublin in 1993, with a major series by Mark Brennock and myself, which kicked off with the headline: "Cash in brown paper bags" for councillors. My only regret was the use of quotation marks.
Although we were excoriated for naming only a dead councillor - all of the living would have sued us for defamation, just as they sued the TD Ms Joan Burton - the series did spark another Garda investigation.
The fact that it, too, turned out to be inconclusive prompted Mr Michael Smith and Mr Colm MacEochaidh to offer their £10,000 reward for information leading to convictions.
It is doubtful that they will ever have to pay out, even though George Redmond was convicted yesterday on two counts of corruption. But that doesn't really matter now, because the reward offer set in motion a train of events that led to the establishment of the planning tribunal in 1997 and ultimately confirmed the truth of so much that was unsayable for so long.
Mr Eamon Gilmore, the Labour Party's environment spokesman, is surely right in saying that the Redmond conviction should lead to a re-examination of other cases involving planning corruption.
"If the people are to have confidence in the public services and particularly in the planning process, it is vital that anyone who is corrupt is brought to justice and dealt with by the courts."
In a statement yesterday he pointed out that Mr Justice Feargus Flood's interim report as chairman of the planning tribunal in September 2002 had bluntly described certain payments he had examined as "corrupt".
Yet no prosecution has yet been initiated against notable recipients of payments, such as Ray Burke.
In its response to Mr Justice Flood's report, as Mr Gilmore noted, the Government announced that a new anti-corruption agency would be established - the Corruption Assets Bureau - with the power to seize assets held by anyone found to be corrupt by a tribunal. This proposal, he said, had been "quietly dropped" and should now be reactivated.
In the wake of all the revelations of recent years, few would disagree with him.