MAHON TRIBUNAL:A FORMER financial controller of Green Property, the company behind the Blanchardstown shopping centre, has said he was "shocked", "surprised"and "dumbfounded" when he learned his company had made payments of at least £23,000 to the late Liam Lawlor, writes Fiona Gartland.
David McDowell also said the company omitted to tell the Mahon tribunal about an account it held at Bank of Ireland St Stephen's Green, out of which one of the cheques to Mr Lawlor was paid, because everybody forgot about it.
Green Property was attempting to build a shopping centre at Blanchardstown in the 1980s and 1990s, when Tom Gilmartin and Owen O'Callaghan were trying to build Liffey Valley shopping centre in West Dublin.
John Corcoran, then managing director of Green Property, liaised with councillors in Dublin county council to promote Blanchardstown and to try to prevent the zoning of Quarryvale.
Mr Lawlor was a councillor with Dublin county council at the time, as well as a sitting TD. He told the Mahon tribunal that he received £35,000 from Green Property.
Mr McDowell said yesterday he did not query cheques Mr Corcoran asked him to sign.
"If Mr Corcoran said it was correct, he was the managing director and I accepted his word," he said.
He said when the inquiry asked the company about payments to Mr Lawlor they checked their records and found nothing. The St Stephen's Green account was dormant, he said, and unfortunately they did not focus on it.
"We apologise for that," he said.
He acknowledged that the account was opened to deal with the Blanchardstown shopping centre development, but they had subsequently moved that business to National Irish Bank, and no one remembered it.
The tribunal found that in November 1988, Green Property paid £13,953 to Economic Reports Ltd, a company controlled and for the benefit of Mr Lawlor.
And, though the tribunal specifically asked about any payments to Comex Trading, a company controlled by Mr Lawlor, Green Property did not reveal that they had paid it £10,000 in February 1991. No invoices were found for either payment.
Counsel for the tribunal, Patricia Dillon SC, said if the payments to Mr Lawlor were disguised in the books of Green Property, similar payments could have been made on other occasions. Mr McDowell agreed.
The tribunal heard Green Property declared donations to Fianna Fáil of over £40,000 from 1990 to 1998.
"Can you think of any reason why anyone would want to keep secret an association between Green Property, Mr Corcoran, and the late Liam Lawlor?" Ms Dillon asked. Mr McDowell said he could not.
PR consultant to Green Property, Pat Keating, of Keating and Associates, said he did not know of any payments to politicians. He experienced hostility at the hands of pro-Quarryvale councillors, he said, but he was never asked for money.
However, he did fear that money may have changed hands.
