A BUILDER has told the High Court a landowner owes him €2 million over a deal which involved the builder spending five years in securing planning approval for a €44 million housing development, including long hours lobbying Dublin county councillors.
Patrick Cassidy, Beaufield Lawns, Maynooth, Kildare, claims the money is due arising out of a 1991 deal which involved him spending months lobbying councillors to successfully obtain rezoning for a 19-acre site at Turvey, Donabate, Dublin, and subsequent planning permission for 95 houses on that site. Mr Cassidy has brought High Court proceedings against the owner of the land, Margaret Heneghan, Beaverstown, Donabate, claiming she and her family have failed to abide by agreements which he made since 1991 with her late husband, John Heneghan, who worked as a site foreman with a building company at the time. Mr Heneghan died in 1996.
Mr Cassidy, who ran a building company in England and described himself as a planning consultant, claims that between 1991 and 1996, he spent “hundreds of hours” working to secure rezoning and planning approval for development by lobbying councillors and officials.
He claims he spent thousands in expenses, including flying back and forth from England to attend council meetings and spending £1,200 (€1,524) on “entertainment, food and beverages” for councillors. It is claimed there was a written agreement that Mr Heneghan would pay Mr Cassidy €266,000 on a “no foal, no fee” basis once permission was obtained and that he would also get four housing sites in the development worth €1.6 million.
Mr Cassidy also claims there was agreement he would be given the contract for the development’s road, drainage and other infrastructural works, worth about €279,000 at the time.
However, after Mr Heneghan died in 1996 and planning permission was obtained, Mrs Heneghan refused to honour the agreement, it is alleged.
Mr Cassidy told the court yesterday he spent long hours lobbying 70-80 per cent of the 72 Dublin county councillors in 1993 to secure rezoning. These included meetings with some councillors in Conway’s pub near the council’s O’Connell Street offices where he would buy one or two drinks for the councillors present.
Reading from his diary entries of the time, Mr Cassidy said he spent £7,000 (€8,800) buying five memberships of the Donabate Turvey Golf Club from the late auctioneer Shane Redmond who was to sell houses in the planned development.
Subsequent to the rezoning, he said he kept in touch with councillors including Anne Devitt, the late Cyril Gallagher and then Senator GV Wright to ensure the planning permission would go ahead.
The hearing continues before Mr Justice Roderick Murphy.