In early 2000, Frank Dunlop, the former government press secretary, acknowledged to the planning tribunal that he had given perjured evidence up to then, writes Vincent Browne.
Subsequently he entered into private interviews with tribunal counsel, and the transcript of one of those interviews, that of May 25th, 2000, has become available because of the Supreme Court decision that the tribunal's previous withholding of such documentation was unlawful.
Frank Dunlop was being interviewed by the two senior members of the tribunal's legal team at the time, John Gallagher and Pat Hanratty.
He was accompanied by his own counsel, Seanan Allen.
For a reason that is not clear Mr Allen asked: "Can we go off [the record] for a second."
Then Mr Hanratty continued with a discussion that had gone on previously about Mr Dunlop's tax arrangements, initially to do with VAT.
Mr Hanratty said: "We were interested in the Revenue files, to be totally frank with you, we were interested in your Revenue files which we have got, in the context of if you were receiving money for the purpose of dispersement to councillors, then you would be made to, if I may say so, to declare it as income because it is not in fact income."
Later Mr Hanratty put what he described as a "hypothetical argument".
He said: "You get £175,000, you spend half of it on yourself, therefore from a Revenue perspective they would regard that as income.
"You spend half of it on your client to somebody else. [Apparently meaning 'you spend half on somebody else'.] Therefore it could not be income and could not be liable to tax penalties or interest or anything else obviously . . . What I am saying to you is if the Revenue were told, whether they believe it or not, that this money was passed on by way of political donation or whatever, provided they were satisfied that you did not have it as income, then you are not liable for tax on it . . . What I am saying is, it is tax neutral, it is not income. Therefore it is not liable to income tax and because it is not fee for services rendered it is not liable to VAT."
This might be run-of-the-mill conversation in normal circumstances but these were not normal circumstances.
Here was a self-admitted liar, perjurer and corrupter of the political process being examined in private by counsel for a tribunal charged with investigating this corruption, communicating to a person who was to become a key witness (in fact the key witness) that the more he could claim he spent on "political donations" (which in the circumstances meant bribing councillors) the less he would be liable for tax.
No doubt Mr Hanratty made these observations innocently and without the slightest intent to influence the subsequent evidence of the prize witness, but, it is not Mr Hanratty's intentions or integrity that matters here, it is the effect of what he said. (Incidentally, although I do not know Pat Hanratty personally, I understand he is a person and a barrister of the highest integrity. )
But what happened subsequently is even more disquieting.
It has emerged during the public sittings of the tribunal that the tribunal supplied Frank Dunlop with copious documentation from Dublin County Council records, including copies and dates of motions passed by the council, lists of councillors and during all this time he was allowed to retain his personal diaries, which, later, were put in evidence as "proof" that certain meetings happened on certain days.
There seems a naivete about all this of staggering proportions, and it would seem that the tribunal's proceedings are contaminated by this naivete almost beyond redemption.
As outlined here over the last few weeks, the tribunal suppressed vital information relevant to the credibility of another of its key witnesses, Tom Gilmartin.
For instance, information about a wild and unsubstantiated claim made in private by Mr Gilmartin that would have led the public to discount much of his other claims - that Owen O'Callaghan, the Cork developer at the centre of the Quarryvale inquiries, was, as Mr Justice Hardiman put it in his Supreme Court
judgment of March 30th last in Owen O'Callaghan's case against the Mahon tribunal, responsible for the death of "a deceased former office holder".
The tribunal also allowed Mr Gilmartin to make charges in the public session of the tribunal of criminal fraud against a solicitor and Owen O'Callaghan when the tribunal knew he had given an entirely different account of the issue in private.
And then the bizarre circumstances in which Tom Gilmartin was given immunity from prosecution.
Very, very strange.