A senior lawyer for the controversial shelf company Jackson Way Properties Ltd was yesterday accused of pulling a "stunt" and "a fast one" on Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council.
The accusation, from Mr Dermot Flanagan SC, for the council, resulted in a threat from Jackson Way's senior counsel, Mr Hugh O'Neill, to report him to the Bar Council.
The angry exchanges occurred during a hearing in which Jackson Way is claiming €47 million in compensation. The claim arises from the compulsory acquisition by the council of 20 acres of Jackson Way's land at Carrickmines in south Dublin for the construction of the South Eastern Motorway.
Mr Flanagan's remarks followed a request by Mr O'Neill for an advance copy of a report to be tendered in evidence by a witness for the county council.
Mr Flanagan objected and said the application for the report as the hearing was about to adjourn for the week-end, was a stunt. He protested that he had to deal with witnesses as they presented themselves and had not been informed in advance by Jackson Way that it was going to produce the director and shareholder of Jackson Way at the hearing. He said that witness Mr Alan Holland appeared one minute and was gone the next.
Mr Holland, who travelled from the UK to give evidence at the hearing, spent just 20 minutes in the witness box and returned to the UK immediately afterwards. He was the first person to admit ownership of Jackson Way, a company under investigation by both the Flood tribunal and the Criminal Assets Bureau. Mr Flanagan said the council had been taken short by his appearance.
When the arbitrator, Mr John Shackleton, suggested that Mr Flanagan make the report available to Mr O'Neill, Mr Flanagan said he felt the arbitrator was "being benevolently neutral" to Jackson Way. "I see it as a stunt and I feel you, Mr Arbitrator, have been taken in by it," he said.
Mr O'Neill said he took the gravest exception to Mr Flanagan's remarks and said if he didn't immediately withdraw them he would report him to the Bar Council. He said he was not trying "to pull a fast one". He told Mr Flanagan before proceedings commenced on October 14th that a witness from the company would be giving evidence that day. He said if Mr Flanagan chose to ignore this it was his business.
Mr Shackleton said there was no question of a stunt and he asked Mr Flanagan to withdraw his comments. He directed that he make the report available.
Mr Flanagan said if his remarks were unprofessional he would withdraw them.
Mr Shackleton adjourned proceedings to November 5th.
Earlier, Mr O'Neill had noted that, according to a recent report from the county manager of the county council, there were various crises in the county, including a demographic crisis, a housing affordability crisis, and a housing construction crisis.
He put it to the council's senior planning officer, Mr Richard Cremins, that if Jackson Way's lands had been rezoned residential it could have eased the housing shortage. Mr Cremins said an adequate land bank had been rezoned in the county in 1998 and much of it was still undeveloped. However, the Jackson Way lands, now mainly zoned agricultural, may be rezoned later, he said.