Analysis: The Redmond case raises serious questions for the DPP and the Garda, writes Paul Cullen.
Following the quashing of Mr Redmond's conviction for corruption yesterday, the entire apparatus of tribunals and Criminal Assets Bureau investigations in recent years has nothing to show for its efforts, at least in the tangible form of an individual behind bars.
The case also raises serious questions for the Garda and the DPP. Why, for instance, was the new evidence Mr Redmond's lawyers produced in their appeal not available during the original trial? And why did it take five months for it to make its way from the Garda to his legal team?
The planning tribunal has found that builders and other business associates made massive payments to Mr Redmond during his 40-year working career in Dublin Corporation. The former assistant Dublin city and county manager returned the favours by dispensing advice on planning.
Between 1979 and 1989 alone £1.2 million passed through his many bank accounts. His salary at the time was £29,000. In 1988, the year before he retired, his investments totalled £660,000, or more than 35 times his annual after-tax pay.
But while the tribunal report generally labelled his activity as corrupt, the task for CAB detectives was more tricky - to establish a specific instance of corruption by linking a specific payment to a specific favour.
Detectives were forced to rely on Mr Brendan Fassnidge, a garage owner with a history of drink problems and business collapses, as their chief witness against Mr Redmond.
However, Mr Fassnidge, who said he gave Mr Redmond £10,000 in 1988 in return for access from his garage to the Lucan bypass, was a ropey witness. Having earlier forgotten that he had paid Dublin County Council £10,000 for the right-of- way, he had his memory jogged by reading notes in court and remembered the payment 24 hours later.
He appeared to be confused over whether he paid the bribe to Mr Redmond in the hallway of his house or whether he took the money from a drinks cabinet. He said his wife witnessed the payment, but she declined to give evidence. There was also the unlikely claim that a journalist promised him £6,000 for his story and then reneged on the deal.
Nine times during the trial he asserted that he had withdrawn the £10,000 bribe from his bank in cash before passing it to Mr Redmond. But after the trial, Mr Redmond's lawyers got possession of Mr Fassnidge's bank accounts, which showed that no such sum was withdrawn in the period in question.
This revelation, even though it didn't touch on the fact that the bribe was allegedly paid in cash, left the Court of Criminal Appeal with no choice but to find the original conviction unsafe. Its decision yesterday, therefore, comes as no surprise.
It is unlikely that Mr Redmond will now seek redress from the State for a miscarriage of justice. First, while the courts ruled out a retrial, this was for the express reason that he had already served most of his sentence - with early release for good behaviour, he was due to leave Cloverhill Prison on August 18th.
Second, two further charges, relating to the granting of a CPO for land at Buzzardstown House, are pending. A second prosecution against an 80-year-old man who has already served time in prison seems unlikely, but cannot be ruled out. In the Fassnidge case, the State could at least produce a witness to testify against Mr Redmond; in the Buzzardstown case, all the principals, apart from Mr Redmond, are deceased.
It is also possible that he could face charges resulting from the third interim report of the tribunal, which found that he hindered and obstructed the work of the inquiry. However, since no one else has faced charges arising from similar findings in earlier tribunal reports, it's a fair bet Mr Redmond won't be the first person in that queue, if there ever is one.
It was always regrettable that someone as old as Mr Redmond should be the first person to go to jail because of the corruption inquiries of the 1990s.
However, he did have a previous conviction for tax offences and his case would have been dealt with earlier if he hadn't launched a series of legal challenges that kept the matter before the courts for years.
Indeed, Mr Redmond's penchant for litigation had a knock-on effect on the tribunal, which postponed the current Quarryvale hearings for up to two years because they might have prejudiced his criminal trial.