THERE WAS “no conspiracy” in the Dublin Docklands Development Authority’s confidential agreement with developer Liam Carroll over a new headquarters building for Anglo Irish Bank, the former chief executive of the authority has said.
Paul Maloney has told The Irish Timesthat he never had a discussion on planning for the building with former DDDA directors Seán FitzPatrick and Lar Bradshaw, who are also both former directors of Anglo Irish Bank.
Anglo was funding the development by Carroll’s company North Quay Investments Ltd (NQIL), and was to rent part of the development as its intended new HQ.
Mr Maloney played a key role in the negotiation of a confidential agreement between the DDDA and Mr Carroll that later caused the High Court to quash planning permission for the development.
The new board of the authority has criticised the deal while voicing concern over cross-directorships between Anglo and the DDDA. “Never, ever, ever did Seán FitzPatrick or Lar Bradshaw ever discuss the planning of the Anglo building with me, verbally, by e-mail or through a third party,” Mr Maloney said.
“I will swear that on oath. Throughout my four years there, neither Seán FitzPatrick nor Lar Bradshaw ever interfered with planning or talked to me about planning outside the boardroom.”
Mr Maloney contacted The Irish Times in response to articles last week concerning a report into the deal by Declan Moylan, of Mason Hayes + Curran solicitors.
The report was commissioned by the former board of the DDDA after the High Court found the confidential agreement created a perception of bias. The court heard the agreement involved the granting of planning permission to NQIL, and the ceding of land by NQIL to the authority.
The authority’s board was not told of the agreement at the time it approved planning for the development. Mr FitzPatrick and Mr Bradshaw were both directors of Anglo and of the DDDA in the period prior to the board decision.
Mr Maloney said the report, details of which were published last week, exonerated the executive from deliberate wrongdoing.
“There was no conspiracy, there was no outside interference; it was a genuine attempt by the executive to ensure that land earmarked for community parks would be handed over by developers, something it had been frustrated from doing in the past.”
He said he has written to Attorney General Paul Gallagher outlining his deep concern that the Moylan report was withheld from him, despite requests that he be allowed to have it. He said he looked forward to being able to stand before the Dáil Committee of Public Accounts and the Comptroller Auditor General, John Buckley, “and swear on oath if necessary that this [Moylan] report is the full truth of the matter”.
Mr Maloney criticised the current chair of the board, Prof Niamh Brennan. Referring to her as a “self-acclaimed expert on corporate governance”, he criticised a report by her board submitted to Minister for the Environment John Gormley. Affected parties had not been interviewed or shown the report’s findings.
When the board report was published in May, Mr Maloney said a finding that had appeared in earlier drafts of the report, that “key planning information was systematically and deliberately withheld from the board”, had been dropped from the final report.
The draft report had been shown to him on the advice of the Attorney General.
