A price tag of a quarter of a million pounds seems like a great deal of money for the vote of a Fine Gael county councillor. And it would have been particularly generous in 1992. After all, sums of £30,000 and £50,000 were regarded as sufficient to ensure the ministerial goodwill of Mr Ray Burke and Mr Padraig Flynn in planning matters only a few years earlier. But the figure of £250,000 was mentioned by the Irish Independent in a report that linked the Fine Gael leader, Mr John Bruton, with a dead Fine Gael councillor and the anticipated evidence of Mr Frank Dunlop before the Flood tribunal next week.
The gist of the report was that Mr Dunlop, who apparently could not be contacted, is to tell the Flood tribunal that the late councillor Tom Hand had sought payment of £250,000 in return for his support in the rezoning of the Quarryvale site in west county Dublin. Mr Hand was alleged to have provided the address of a foreign bank and a bank account number in order to facilitate the transaction. Mr Dunlop, who had lobbied every single member of Dublin county council in support of the project was reported to be so upset and angry that he had raised the matter with Mr Bruton at a Fine Gael meeting in the Red Cow Inn. The broad implication is that nothing had been done by the Fine Gael leader to root out the planning corruption which had so so exercised him and his party when it affected Fianna Fail.
The report had all the makings of a "curate's egg", containing sound and suspect elements. Parts of it may be factually accurate, but others are being hotly contested. And the precise nature of Mr Dunlop's evidence has yet to be adduced at the tribunal. Earlier this week, the former Fianna Fail Government press secretary gave evidence he had been paid £175,000 by the Quarryvale developer, Mr Owen O'Callaghan, for his work in lobbying members of Dublin county council between 1991 and 1993. He said only one councillor asked him for money during that period. And he wrote down the name of that person for the tribunal - presumably Mr Hand. Given what is now known as a result of the work of the Moriarty and Flood tribunals, it seems extraordinary that the single request for funds in relation to this major development project came from a dead Fine Gael councillor.
The Fine Gael leader has issued a statement admitting he had "social conversations" with Mr Dunlop at a number of party fundraising events. But he denied Mr Dunlop had made a special arrangement to meet him and told him that a named Fine Gael councillor had solicited a bribe. Mr Bruton was certain this did not happen. It was, he said, something he would have remembered and would have had investigated immediately. He went on to question why Mr Dunlop had not notified the Garda of this criminal act at the time and why he had not informed the tribunal of the matter when it had initially invited people with information to come forward.
Mr Ivan Yates has accused Fianna Fail of "dirty tricks" and of trying to entangle Fine Gael in the negative publicity generated by the tribunal hearings. Fianna Fail, in turn, insists it has nothing to do with the allegations and that the matter is strictly between Mr Dunlop and the tribunal. Wherever the truth lies, it should be disinterred as quickly as possible. Mr Dunlop's direct evidence to the Flood tribunal may bring some clarity to the situation.