Coffey to deny Dunlop meeting allegation: ThePost.ie


TCH Archives > Sunday Business Post > 2003/10/05 > Coffey to deny Dunlop meeting allegation

Coffey to deny Dunlop meeting allegation
Sunday, October 05, 2003
By Barry O'Kelly
Prominent Fianna Fail councillor Betty Coffey is expected to contradict diary records held by the whistleblower Frank Dunlop this week, according to sources. Coffey's testimony this Tuesday to the Mahon Tribunal into alleged planning corruption will be that she was in Germany at the time she was supposed to be meeting the lobbyist in Dublin, the sources said. The alleged meeting was of minor significance,but Coffey's account calls into question the accuracy of Dunlop's diary entries.

The Fianna Fail leader on Dun Laoghaire Rathdown County Council was one of two councillors who proposed the controversial rezoning of 36 acres in Carrickmines in 1997. She said she did not get any money from Dunlop, which has since been confirmed to a Fianna Fail party inquiry.

Her anticipated evidence will be seized upon by other councillors desperate to damage Dunlop's credibility.

The former government press secretary claims to have shelledout twotranches of cash to councillors around the time of rezonings at Carrickmines in 1991/1992 and 1997.

The lobbyist has named eight councillors who allegedly received bribes in return for their votes on the Carrickmines rezoning. The councillors implicated are Colm McGrath, Liam Cosgrave, Jack Larkin, Tom Hand, Don Lydon, John O'Halloran, Tony Fox and Cyril Gallagher.

Dunlop was hired by the Co Laois-born businessman Jim Kennedy to lobby the councillors. His company, Jackson Way, owned part of the land that was proposed for rezoning by the councillors against the advice of council officials.

The other 22 acres was owned by Brian O'Halloran, Austin Darragh and Gerard Kilcoyne. They paid Dunlop £36,500 (e46,350). Dunlop maintained that the three landowners from Foxrock had no knowledge of him handing money to any councillors.

He said that Kennedy knew full well about the backhanders being paid to rezone his land.

Kilcoyne, in a letter to the tribunal, claimed: "On reflection, both Mr O'Halloran and I were complete novices in regard to the county council modus operandi, we were unfamiliar both with the process and personalities involved."

Dunlop claimed that he paid Councillor Fox £5,000 (e6,350) for his support for rezoning the Kennedy site - but not the portion rezoned at the same time that belonged to O'Halloran, Darragh and Kilcoyne.