Liam Lawlor stands to be a major beneficiary if the Adamstown scheme goes ahead, writes Paul Cullen.
Where there's muck, there's money, they say, and no-one knows this better than Liam Lawlor. Thirty years ago, as a young business entrepreneur, he spotted the money-spinning potential of the turnip fields and pasture-lands of west Co Dublin.
Flush with money from his refrigeration business, Lawlor bought Somerton, an imposing Georgian pile in Lucan surrounded by dozens of acres of farmland. Almost immediately, he set about ensuring he would be among the first to benefit when the ever-expanding capital to the east arrived in Lucan.
The newly elected TD teamed up with Jim Kennedy, a fellow Laois man, who owned a pub in Clondalkin and dabbled in property development. Lawlor monitored the political developments, aware through his membership of Dublin County Council of every move envisaged by the planners. Kennedy took care of the technical details of putting fields under concrete, and lawyer John Caldwell came in to dream up elaborate financial structures to channel funds and proceeds in and out of the country.
The three men collaborated on a number of land deals around Lucan and in Baldoyle, north Dublin. Lawlor received at least £685,000 in proceeds from these deals in Liechtenstein, the Mahon Tribunal has heard in recent weeks.
However, the politician hasn't always obtained what he wanted. In April, 1980, the council rezoned 150 acres of land in Lucan for housing, against the advice of officials. The decision was highly unpopular, even before it emerged Lawlor owned 20 of the rezoned acres. The TD wasn't present for the vote; he left the meeting shortly before his colleagues pushed the decision through.
After massive controversy, the vote was rescinded. Unlucky Lawlor, who later claimed the lands were worth £20 million, was left to lick his wounds. Still optimistic the tide would turn in his favour, Lawlor and his business partners put down the pipe infrastructure needed before houses could be built. The pipe went from Lucan village to a point 70 yards from Lawlor's lands.
However, mounting financial problems dashed his hopes of developing his own property. In 1995, with the banks threatening to seize his home, Lawlor sold 23 acres to a company controlled by Harry Dobson, a Scottish mining millionaire.
Most of his land was gone, but Lawlor still retained a share of the pipe. Today, the massive growth of Dublin has well and truly reached Lucan, and the case for development is contested by few. How this development will take place is still moot, however, as this week's Bord Pleanála hearing on Adamstown shows.
Meanwhile, Lawlor, bereft of his career as a politician but still focused on land deals, pointed out that the "underground infrastructure" put down in the 1980s services 20 per cent of the houses planned for Adamstown. By his own calculation, a go-ahead for Adamstown could net him €2.5 million.
That isn't the end of it, either. Lawlor and his wife, Hazel, still own Somerton and about six acres around it. Hazel Lawlor has asked An Bord Pleanála to put their property back into the area designated for "fast-track" development. If this happens, the value of the lands will soar and Lawlor's current financial and legal problems might just seem a little more tolerable.