Mr Michael Bailey objected yesterday to being asked about his political allegiance, saying that he may have been a Fianna Fail man last week but he may be a different man this week. Mr Desmond O'Neill SC, for the tribunal, asked him if he was a Fianna Fail supporter, as his personal preference. Mr Bailey replied: "I'm a businessman. I think, in the interests of my democratic right, that you shouldn't be allowed to ask me a question like that in this tribunal." Mr O'Neill said it was a matter that he covered extensively in his statement to the tribunal. Mr Bailey had stated that he made no apology for stating his political preference and now he was raising it as an issue.
"No, I don't believe that you should be entitled to ask me a personal situation of what my belief and political beliefs are," said Mr Bailey. ail man last week and I may be a different man this week and I think its it's unfair to ask me that question," said Mr Bailey. Counsel said that he raised it in his tribunal statement. Mr Bailey said what he said in that statement was true. Mr O'Neill said in that case why was he objecting now.
"That's not to say it's true at this moment," Mr Bailey stated. Mr O'Neill quoting the statement said: "Again for the avoidance of doubt, I was and continue to be a long-standing supporter of the Fianna Fail party for which I do not make any apology. I would have been active in the Fianna Fail party politics at a local level in my area." Counsel said he was perfectly happy to make the statement then, why was he making an issue of it now? Mr Bailey replied: "I'm entitled to my democratic right to say what I believe. I said it on January 11th, that's what I felt on January 11th, it doesn't mean that I feel it now."
Mr Bailey agreed he was a member of Fianna Fail in 1989.
An apology was made to the tribunal yesterday by Mr Michael Bailey who said that if he had misled it in any way it was unintentional. The tribunal cleared up a matter from the previous day. Mr Desmond O'Neill SC, for the tribunal, said Mr Bailey had been of the mistaken belief that questions put to him on Tuesday about his contact with local government officials in 1988/89 concerned the Forest Road development only. Mr Bailey said that counsel had asked him if he had met any local authority officials when he was making planning applications and he had answered not to his knowledge or recollection, which was 100 per cent right. All the way along, Mr Bailey said he believed he was talking specifically about the Forest Road lands and that still was his view on those questions which he had answered to the best of his ability.
"If it's the view that I misled the tribunal on those questions and answers on the later questions, I did so unintentionally and I apologise to the tribunal unreservedly for that situation," he said. Because of the length of time he had been building in Dublin, he would know the majority of local county councillors, if not them all, because he would have had to lobby them.