Lobbyist Frank Dunlop had an impressive client list and was "extremely helpful" in providing his communications expertise to Fianna Fáil, the party's former chief fundraiser told the Mahon tribunal yesterday.
Des Richardson said before agreeing to act as a consultant for a year for Mr Dunlop's company following an approach from him in 1997, he conducted a "background check" on Mr Dunlop.
Mr Dunlop had a client list that included RTÉ, Aer Lingus, some banks, Greencore and the Bar Council, Mr Richardson said.
"He wanted to source new clients for his PR company . . . I was very happy to be working with Frank with the clientele that he had," he said.
He got to know Mr Dunlop after Mr Richardson took up his role as chief fundraiser with the party in 1993. Mr Dunlop had offered to help him with his work, putting fundraising letters together and helping Mr Richardson to compose speeches.
Last December, Mr Richardson told the tribunal that about 5 per cent of Fianna Fáil fundraising activity in the mid-1990s was carried out in the form of "pick-me- up" payments. This involved a person who wanted to make a donation picking up an owed bill.
Asked by counsel for the tribunal Patricia Dillon SC how many "pick me ups" he had been involved in over the years, Mr Richardson said it would have amounted to maybe 15 or 20. He stressed it would have been a "very, very small" percentage of the party's fundraising.
John Butler, a member of a consortium that owned land at Cloghran near Dublin airport, has said he was asked by Mr Dunlop to pay money owed by Fianna Fáil to advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi. In his statement to the tribunal, Mr Butler said Mr Dunlop asked that the money be paid to the agency in lieu of his consultancy fee. Mr Dunlop denies this.
Mr Dunlop also alleged he paid councillors to ensure they voted in favour of the rezoning of 18 acres of the consortium's agricultural land at Cloghran.
Mr Richardson said yesterday he had "no recollection whatsoever" of approaching Mr Butler of Scafform Ltd for a "pick me up." He added it was unlikely that anyone else on a committee for the annual Kilmainham hospital constituency fundraising dinner for Taoiseach Bertie Ahern's constituency, Dublin Central, would have approached Mr Butler.
"It's a long time ago. I wasn't particularly friendly with Johnny Butler . . . there were people on the [fundraising] committee who would have known him better than I did," he said.