O'Herlihy tells of '€100,000 payment'

RTÉ sports presenter and public relations consultant Bill O'Herlihy has said that he was informed by an executive of a development company that it had given £100,000 to Fianna Fáil senator Don Lydon to distribute among Dublin county councillors in relation to the rezoning of land at Cherrywood, near Carrickmines.

Giving evidence to the Mahon tribunal yesterday, Mr O'Herlihy said he had been told by Richard Lynn of Monarch Properties that Mr Lydon had been "the lead councillor" and the point man between the company and council members in connection with plans to develop housing at Cherrywood.

Mr Lynn had told him that planning changes and material contraventions (of the county development plan) had to be bought. He said Mr Lynn had maintained that "planning changes and material contraventions were worth about £50,000 a year into the back pocket of councillors, if they co-operated with developers".

Counsel for Mr Lynn said Mr O'Herlihy's evidence was "inherently unbelievable". Mr Lydon last night said he "categorically and absolutely" rejected Mr O'Herlihy's allegations.

Mr O'Herlihy said he worked as public relations consultant for Monarch for several months in relation to its plans for Cherrywood. He believed he had been commissioned because of his Fine Gael connections and to make contact with the party's councillors.

His conversations with Mr Lynn had taken place in the bar of the Royal Dublin Hotel in May 1992 just before a council vote on the Cherrywood plans, which Monarch ultimately lost.

Mr O'Herlihy said he told Mr Lynn he hoped councillors recognised the quality and merit of the proposals.

Mr Lynn had replied: "You must be joking, councillors never recognise quality and merit. If you want to get a planning change or a material contravention through, you have to buy it".

He said Mr Lynn told him that the system involved developing a "lead councillor". "You deal with him and he deals with all the other councillors and he determines what exactly is required to actually get the votes required to pass a particular planning approval or motion".

Mr O'Herlihy said Mr Lynn told him that Monarch had paid £100,000. "Now I don't know whether he was talking about generally or whether on that particular project, but my question related to the project," he said.

He said the £100,000 had been given to the "lead councillor" to be distributed to other members to buy votes. Mr O'Herlihy said Mr Lynn had identified Mr Lydon as Monarch's "lead councillor".

He said he was naming Mr Lydon under protest as his evidence was completely hearsay and could be entirely untrue.

Mr O'Herlihy said he had been shocked and disgusted at Mr Lynn's comments.

"I was one of the people at the time who believed that things were decided on merit. I had no idea that there was corruption in the planning system at all or that money came into it."

He had found Monarch to be a company of great probity and professionalism and he was "gob-smacked" by Mr Lynn's comments. If "there had been a sniff of corruption", he would not have been part of the project.

Counsel for Mr Lynn, Mark Sanfey SC, said his client could not have had such a conversation with the public relations consultant as he had not been in the hotel at the time. Mr Lynn had been in the public gallery of the council throughout its meeting.

He suggested Mr O'Herlihy had "misremembered a conversation with somebody else".

Mr O'Herlihy conceded that he could be wrong on the time of the conversation but was adamant that it had taken place.

"There is no gain in this for me," he said. "The last thing I need is to appear before a tribunal."

In a personal statement last night, Mr Lydon said Mr O'Herlihy's evidence was hearsay and it was outrageous that the tribunal should give credence to "pub talk". He had never been responsible for the distribution of money from Monarch to councillors.