Several major property development companies are amongst those who contributed to a golf classic election fundraiser last year for Minister for Finance, Brian Cowen, according to documents filed with the Standards in Public Office Commission.
The €1,000-a-team golf classic, which took place at Hollystown Golf Club, near Dublin airport, last September, was organised by a Dublin-based friend from Offaly, Mr Cowen's spokesman told The Irish Timeslast night.
One of the other contributors was Oliver Barry, who owns Hollystown and who was found by the Flood tribunal to have "obstructed and hindered" its investigations into former minister Ray Burke's handling of the awarding of the Century radio licence in the late 1980s.
The developers who supported the political fundraiser, include a subsidiary company of Ballymore Homes, O'Callaghan Hotels, Twinlight Developments, Cosgrove Developments and Ken McDonald of Hooke and McDonald auctioneers.
Responding to questions last night from The Irish Times, Mr Cowen's spokesman said: "The declarable contributions listed by the Minister for Finance in his return to the Standards in Public Office Commission arose from a golf classic organised by a Dublin-based friend from Offaly of the Minister, architect Michael Kelly, as an election fundraiser.
"The Minister agreed to the holding of the event but had no other involvement whatsoever in its organisation nor did he solicit any donations personally in relation to it.
"The Minister attended the event on the day, played on a team and presented the prizes afterwards."
Other players on the day included a number of Dublin-based Offaly natives, including Doheny and Nesbitt publican Tom Mangan; Dublin-based publican, top accountant and former Offaly minor footballer Hugh Cooney; and Dublin-based solicitor Andrew O'Rorke.
In its 2002 report, the Flood tribunal found that Mr Barry had failed to "provide a truthful account" about why he paid Mr Burke £35,000 in May 1989 and "failed to provide a truthful account of his efforts in getting Mr Burke to put pressure on RTÉ about transmission charges".
Furthermore, he had failed "to provide the tribunal with a truthful account of the role played by him and Mr Stafford in ensuring that Mr Burke issued a directive in March 1989 to RTÉ concerning transmission charges".
He had also failed "to give a truthful account of the role played by him and by Mr Stafford in ensuring that Mr Burke would introduce legislation to cap RTÉ's advertising income, to redistribute RTÉ's licence fee income and to change the role of 2FM".
