Dunlop served with tribunal papers at function with minister

The former government press secretary, Mr Frank Dunlop, was served with papers by the Flood tribunal while he was attending a function in Dublin with a "senior minister", it emerged yesterday.

Mr Dunlop admitted to the tribunal that he had discussed the notice, which requested his assistance on disclosing corrupt payments to politicians, with a wide range of people, including politicians and developers, despite the tribunal's instruction not to do so.

He said that he received the letter in the Conrad Hotel in October 1998 within hours of receiving a phone call from a woman representative of the tribunal who said that she had an "urgent dispatch" for him. He told her to meet him at the function, where the letter was handed over in the presence of the minister.

Mr Dunlop was being cross-examined by Mr Michael O'Higgins SC, for Mr Liam Cosgrave, about how the lobbyist came to lie to the tribunal on his first appearance before it in April/May 2000.

Asked to explain the preparations he made to "hoodwink" the inquiry, Mr Dunlop replied that there was "no tactic and no strategy". He had been aware that other people had got letters from the tribunal, but the attitude, which he shared, was that "nobody" would admit to receiving or giving money.

Mr O'Higgins said there was circumstantial evidence to suggest that Mr Dunlop had forged his diaries, in particular by filling in a reference to a November 1992 meeting with "LTC" at Newtownpark Avenue, Dublin, after April/May 2000, but before the diaries became available to the tribunal.

Rejecting the claim, Mr Dunlop said all entries on that day were "in the same hand, which is mine, and in the same pen."

Mr O'Higgins asked whether the entry had been made to conceal a link between Mr Dunlop and a separate politician who shared the same initials as Mr Cosgrave, LC.

"I reject that absolutely," Mr Dunlop replied. While he agreed that they were "very good friends" and that he socialised with the other politician, Mr Dunlop said there was no way the LC in question would have been meeting him at Newtownpark Avenue.

Mr O'Higgins further pressed him as to whether he had been engaged in a "very sophisticated form of deception" when he gave his initial evidence to the tribunal. He suggested that his "present evidence" had "echoes" of that now-discredited original evidence.

Mr Dunlop said that he did not accept this argument. He said he had not engaged in "crisis-management" or preparations.

Listing various instances of dishonesty, Mr O'Higgins said that Mr Dunlop had thrown the late Fine Gael councillor Tom Hand to the tribunal as a "sacrificial lamb" by virtue of the fact that he was dead and therefore a "soft target".

He further accused Mr Dunlop of calculating, in the style of British publicist Max Clifford, that the story about Mr Hand needed "a bit of legs", and so the money involved had increased from £50,000 to the more "sexy" sum of £250,000.

Mr Dunlop denied the charges, saying there were no such calculations going on. He further denied that a tax declaration made by him in October 1998, to regularise his tax situation, was a "sophisticated lie" which, Mr O'Higgins alleged, was designed to lay a "false trail" before the tribunal.

Mr Dunlop said that he had sought to make the declaration after becoming "uncomfortable" about a number of events in late 1997 and early 1998. He believed it was no more than a coincidence that the declaration was made at the same time that the tribunal was investigating him.

In related evidence, Mr Dunlop admitted it was "partly correct" to say he had fooled an unnamed developer who had made him a multi-millionaire by redirecting some of the businessman's money to his "back pocket", and some to fund other people's "nefarious" schemes.

Mr Dunlop said that he was dishonest, but he had to be "because we were dealing with dishonest people, namely councillors".

Mr O'Higgins commented: "If this is how he treats a friend who makes him a multi-millionaire, what hope does my client have?"

Mr Dunlop also denied leaking a series of stories to the media which either portrayed him as a "victim" or were damaging to Fine Gael. He admitted, however, that he had a "very good suspicion" about who leaked one of them.

Mr Justice Flood agreed to a request from Mr O'Higgins, for the tribunal, that Mr Dunlop should reveal to the tribunal the name of this suspected source in writing.

The tribunal continues next Tuesday.