MAHON TRIBUNAL:FORMER EU commissioner Ray MacSharry told the Mahon tribunal he was asked to look for donations to Fianna Fáil of between £50,000 and £100,000 each from a number of businessmen in 1993.
Mr MacSharry asked Cork developer Owen O’Callaghan to contribute £100,000 to the party and also had meetings with a number of other businessman about donations. “I asked everybody for 100, but if I got 50 I’d be happy,” he said.
Mr MacSharry said when he returned from the EU in 1993, he went to lunch with then taoiseach Albert Reynolds and the late Flor Crowley, a former Fianna Fáil TD.
They discussed the party’s £3 million debt, and he was asked to help fundraise. He told the tribunal that all parties were trying to raise funds ahead of new legislation that would restrict political fundraising. “They all got some contributions because it was coming to the end of corporations providing unlimited resources to political parties,” he said.
He said he agreed to help on the condition that the businessmen would first be written to by Mr Reynolds and then minister for finance Bertie Ahern, who was also chairman of the national finance committee.
“I would then follow up the approach on their behalf with those people,” he said.
Counsel for the tribunal, Pat Quinn SC, asked Mr MacSharry who decided which businessmen should be approached. He said he had no role in the decision.
Then Fianna Fáil fundraiser Des Richardson gave him a copy of each letter sent out and he followed up the letters, he said.
“I was just given a series of letters . . . some wouldn’t even meet me for many reasons. But many of them did meet us and did contribute,” he said.
The party wrote to Mr O’Callaghan in September 1993 and Mr MacSharry met him in December.
“Did you ask Mr O’Callaghan for £100,000?” Mr Quinn asked.
“Yes, he said he would consider it further, but he was favourably disposed to do so,” Mr MacSharry said. The tribunal was told that Mr O’Callaghan sent a cheque for £80,000 to the party in June 1994. He also gave a £10,000 donation at a Fianna Fáil fundraising dinner attended by Mr Reynolds in Cork and a further £10,000 to the EU election campaign for Brian Crowley.
Mr MacSharry also said he did not promise Luton-based developer Tom Gilmartin that he would “remove roadblocks” in the way of the Quarryvale development.
Mr Gilmartin had told the tribunal that he met Mr MacSharry while he was minister for finance in December 1987. They had discussed his development and Mr MacSharry had been supportive. Mr MacSharry said there was no record of any such meeting with Mr Gilmartin.
“Do I recall Mr Gilmartin meeting me and saying I would remove all roadblocks? I wasn’t in the business of roadblocks, there is a planning process that has to be gone through there,” Mr MacSharry said.
