One of Dublin's best known house-building firms, Tiernan Homes Ltd, gave Mr Frank Dunlop £30,000 for distribution to Dublin county councillors as election expenses in 1991-92, at a time when the rezoning of the firm's 54 acres of land at Finnstown, near Lucan, was under consideration, The Irish Times has established.
Mr Christopher Jones and his late brother, Mr Gerry Jones, are also believed to be among the landowners and developers whom Mr Dunlop listed to the Flood tribunal this week as giving him money.
The Jones brothers owned a 77-acre farm at Ballycullen, south of Tallaght, which was rezoned in the same period. According to Mr Dunlop's evidence to the tribunal, they gave him a total of £17,500 for disbursement to councillors.
Though Mr Dunlop did not publicly name any of the landowners or developers he was representing at the time, he gave some clues that, in conjunction with a perusal of council records, permit some of the lands in question to be identified. Tiernan Homes, which made the biggest contribution itemised on the lobbyist's latest list, is a long-established firm of house-builders run by Mr Joe Tiernan, who once stood unsuccessfully as a Fine Gael candidate for the county council. In 1990, the council voted through a "material contravention" of its county plan to enable permission to be granted to Tiernan Homes for 470 houses and a shopping centre on agriculture-zoned land at Finnstown, south of Lucan.
However, the council's decision was successfully challenged in a High Court judicial review case taken by an accountant, Mr Ray Jackson, of Stokes Kennedy Crowley, whose home on Newcastle Road was almost surrounded by Tiernan's site.
The decision, which ultimately opened up the south Lucan area for development, was also overturned by An Bord Pleanala, largely because the land was not zoned and its development would be contrary to the council's planning strategy.
In April 1991, five councillors - including Mr Sean Lyons (Ind), Mr Cathal Boland (FG) and the late Mr Tom Hand (FG) - sponsored a motion to rezone the Finnstown land for residential development, and this proposal went on public display.
In February, 1993, Cllr Guss O'Connell (Ind) and Cllr Don Tipping (Labour) failed in their effort to have this decision overturned. Instead, by 39 votes to 22, the council adopted a motion proposed by Mr Hand and Cllr Peter Brady to retain the rezoning.
In doing so, the majority ignored hundreds of objections from Lucan residents as well as the advice of the council's professional planners and an appeal by opposition councillors to defer the issue pending consideration of the High Court judgment.
According to Mr Dunlop's evidence to the Flood tribunal last Tuesday, his advice to the developer in this case was that "some monies" should be made available for "legitimate" election expenses and this resulted in him receiving two cheques of £15,000 each.
One cheque was given to him on June 22nd, 1991, coinciding with that year's local government elections, and the second was paid on November 10th, 1992, at the time of that year's general election. The money was disbursed to selected councillors.
In the Ballycullen case, Mr Dunlop said those involved - the Jones brothers - were "two very honourable people who had been completely frustrated by virtue of the fact that they had made application after application and nothing had happened".
Dublin County Council records show that Ballycullen Farms Ltd, the Jones brothers' company, had sought to have the 77-acre holding rezoned in the early 1980s, arguing that farming was no longer viable in the area with vandalism and trespassing.
The Jones brothers were seeking an industrial zoning as their land was close to the planned Southern Cross section of the M50 motorway. However, this draft rezoning was overturned before the council adopted its 1983 county plan.
The Fine Gael councillors were instructed from the then Taoiseach, Dr Garret FitzGerald, to follow the advice of the county planners, whose views would be given to the council by the then assistant city and county manager, Mr George Redmond.
The Jones brothers tried again in 1991, this time for low-density residential zoning, maximum 360 houses, the rest of the land to be open space. But this was opposed by the planners as "contrary to the proper planning and development of the area."
In what he described as a "relatively innocent" procedure, Mr Dunlop introduced them to "a number of the local representatives with whom they had had ongoing difficulties". He received a total of £17,500 which was then disbursed to a number of councillors as election expenses.
The motion, proposed by Mr Hand and Senator Don Lydon (FF), was passed by 42 votes to 14. The Ballycullen land was later developed for "more than twice the number of residential units and no facilities", such as a mooted golf course, as Mr Dunlop told the tribunal.
