A councillor charged with attempting to defraud Galway County Council of €7,000, has claimed that the council owed him more than €14,000 for stone it had taken off his lands.
This followed a verbal agreement he said yesterday he had with a council engineer in 2001 to have works carried out on his farm under a Community Involvement Scheme which had not been honoured.
Independent councillor Michael Fahy (57), Caherduff, Ardrahan, in south Galway, denies seven charges of fraud against the council under the Larceny, Theft and Fraud Offences Act. Some of the charges allege that in 2002, he caused £7,055 to be paid by the council to Thomas Byrne, trading as Byrne Fencing Ltd, for works carried out for his own use and benefit on his private lands.
He also denies attempted theft in 2003 by submitting invoices from a fencing company for €7,233 and €7,523 and with attempting to make a gain for himself by submitting those invoices in 2003.
He claimed yesterday that he had a "gentleman's" agreement with then council area engineer Noel Forde that he would give cut stone from a derelict thatched cottage on his farm to the council in return for fencing work to be carried out on his land.
Top council officials, including former county manager Donal O'Donoghue, senior engineer John Morgan and Mr Forde denied earlier that the council had any such verbal agreement with Mr Fahy.
Conor Fahy, prosecuting, said the accused had attempted to defraud the council by submitting two invoices in 2003 which he knew were "bogus" and "concocted".
They were for works which were never carried out for the benefit of the public but were solely for Mr Fahy's personal gain. "You tried to pull the wool over John Costello's eyes, after he succeeded Mr Forde as area engineer in 2002, because he was new to the job. You were successful with the first invoice and you submitted a second one which wasn't paid.
"You had plumbed the depths by getting two CISs in your area and you knew you couldn't look for a third." When asked by his counsel, Martin Giblin SC, why had he agreed to repay €7,000 to the council and had also paid €3,000 to a local charity if he felt he had done nothing wrong, Mr Fahy said he did it for "diplomacy's sake".
"When I paid the money back I didn't make any admission. I paid it because Mr O'Donoghue said
paying the money back would bring closure to the matter." He blamed people in the roads and transportation section of the council for involving the gardaí.
He faltered on a number of occasions when he recalled how his elderly mother had been affected by the arrival of three detectives at their home in August, 2004. He claimed he found his mother crying in the kitchen while gardaí were in the sitting room waiting to interview him. He said she thought she had seen handcuffs and chains on the table and she was worried he was going to be arrested. Det Sgt Michael Coppinger, Det Martin Glynn and Det Tony Reidy denied handcuffs had been placed on the table.
Witness for the defence, engineer Michael Mooney, said he valued the stone taken off Mr Fahy's land at €14,625, while the value of the work the fencing company had carried out was €10,753.
The trial continues today.