Burke to be released next Tuesday

Disgraced former Fianna Fáil minister Ray Burke is to be released from prison next Tuesday.

Burke was sentenced to six months' imprisonment last January but was given full remission for good behaviour.

A spokesman for the Prison Service confirmed yesterday that the former minister was due to complete his sentence on June 7th.

"He kept his head down, got full remission and will be out next week," the spokesman said.

However, Burke could now face further investigation for alleged obstruction of the planning tribunal which has conducted an extensive investigation of his affairs.

According to reports he spent much of the 4½ months behind bars working in the prison's Braille workshop.

The former politician pleaded guilty last year to knowingly or wilfully furnishing incorrect information during the government's tax amnesty of 1993 by failing to declare an income of £91,980.

He also admitted knowingly or wilfully furnishing incorrect information to the inspector of taxes on or after December 1993 by failing to declare income of £24,038.

The investigation by the Criminal Assets Bureau that led to Burke's arrest began in 2000, and in a search at his home a folder of information showed he had failed to fully declare his income over a nine-year period.

He had declared income from deposit accounts at just over £5,000 for the period 1982 to 1991. Actual earnings were over £97,000.

In 2001, the planning tribunal concluded that he had received numerous corrupt payments from developers and other businessmen.

Meanwhile, an application has been lodged to demolish Burke's former home, Briargate, as part of a huge redevelopment of the site in Swords, north Dublin.

Developers Flynn and O'Flaherty, who bought Briargate and surrounding lands from Burke for €4 million in 2000, plan to build a leisure centre, shops and over 300 apartments on 2.2 hectares of land off the Malahide Road.

Burke and his wife, Ann, used the proceeds of the sale to buy a smaller home in Whitehall.

The company has applied to Fingal County Council to demolish Briargate and an adjoining house to make way for the new development, which will adjoin the Pavilions shopping centre.

Briargate is best known as the venue for the £30,000 bribe paid to Burke by executives of Joseph Murphy Structural Engineering in June 1989.