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LIBRARY >>
FASCISM >>
Irish Government
Ireland on Sunday February 15 2005
Bertie’s link to Dunlop
(John Lee)
Embarrassment over fundraiser’s deal with the disgraced lobbyist
The Taoiseach’s close friend and advisor, Des Richardson, is a partner of disgraced lobbyist Frank Dunlop in a speculative property investment.
The previously undisclosed business association between Mr Richardson and Mr Dunlop is acutely embarrassing for Bertie Ahern and will probably prompt a political storm. The Taoiseach has worked hard to dissociate his party from planning and financial corruption.
But this link between a member of his so-called ‘kitchen cabinet’ and a man who has been exposed as a key figure in the planning corruption scandal is acutely embarrassing.
Recent revelations that Tommy Reilly – Fianna Fáil’s intended candidate in the upcoming Meath by-election – was involved in property speculation with Mr Dunlop were enough to see him stand down. But Mr Richardson is more than just a by-election candidate – he is a former party fundraiser, an intimate of Mr Ahern’s and a man with access to the inner sanctums of Government.
Mr Dunlop won overnight notoriety in 2000 when he was forced by the Flood Tribunal to confess that he had paid massive bribes to Dublin councillors in return for votes on planning applications.
According to Land Registry documents seen by this newspaper, Mr Dunlop and Mr Richardson each own a 25pc stake in a valuable property in the centre of Navan. The site of less than one acre is at present a carpark but is at the centre of an area scheduled for major commercial development in the coming years.
The other equal partners are well-known Co Meath property developers Eamonn Duignan and Cathal McCarthy. The property is strategically important to a multi-million euro portfolio controlled by Mr Duignan and Mr McCarthy.
Business dealings involving Mr Richardson and Mr Dunlop have been investigated by the Flood Tribunal but it was believed all connections had been severed.
Sources close to the Taoiseach said he will be ‘apoplectic’ at the revelations coming so soon after the jailing of Ray Burke and the deselection of Mr Reilly.
Both Mr Dunlop and Mr Richardson confirmed that they had been involved in the investment but denied last night they were still in partnership. But documents filed at the Land Registry appear to contradict this claim.
Bizarrely, Mr Dunlop claimed he had left the partnership before 1997 – the year in which ownership of the site is first registered. Land Registry files show that Mr Richardson, Mr Dunlop, Mr Duignan and Mr McCarthy bought the land on Abbey Road near Kennedy Road, as a partnership in February 1997.
All four give their address as 25 Lower Mount Street, Dublin 2 – the location of Frank Dunlop and Associates Mr Dunlop’s consultancy company.
Thirteen ‘dealings’ or transactions were carried out on the property between March 1997 and March 2004.
Mr Duignan and Mr McCarthy own Navan Shopping Centre, which recently underwent a multi-million euro expansion. The shopping centre stands immediately opposite the controversial plot of land.
Documents seen by Ireland on Sunday show that Mr Duignan, Mr McCarthy and Mr Richardson have been buying up land in the area since 1997. There is no record of Mr Dunlop’s involvement other than in the carpark.
Navan is one of the country’s fastest-growing towns, and property values have rocketed in recent years, Mr Duignan and Mr McCarthy made the news late last year when they offered more than 20m euro to members of Navan Pitch and Putt Club for their course.
Some of the land partly owned by Mr Dunlop and Mr Richardson is now the subjedct of a compulsory purchase order by Meath County Council to create a civic space.
“It was something that was with the Companies Office a long time ago and I forgot all about it”, said Mr Dunlop. “Myself and Richardson bought a couple of small properties in Navan many years ago in the Kennedy and Trimgate Street area. It’s so long ago it was lost in the recesses of my mind”, he added. “but I decided I didn’t want to be involved and around 1995 and 1996 , I got out. But my name seems to have been left on it”.
“You’ll have to Duignan about that. He owns a lot of property in Navan, including Navan Shopping Centre.
“I got involved in the deal in the early ‘90s” added Mr Dunlop. “Duignan was a tenant of mine in Mount Street and he asked me to go into partnership with him on the deal”.
“But in 1996 I think, I decided I couldn’t remain in partnership and Duignan bought me out. We had, how should I say it, differences of opinion. We were the owners. There was no company – it was a partnership. “
Mr Dunlop’s assertion that he got out of the deal in 1995/6 appears to be incorrect, as the property was not acquired officially by the four men until 1997.
Mr Richardson also said the partnership with Mr Dunlop is at an end but said he was aware some of the property was the subject of a CPO.
“Frank Dunlop is not involved” Mr Richardson said last night. “As far as I know, he sold out a number of years ago – around five years ago, I think”.
Neither Mr Duignan or Mr McCarthy were available for comment yesterday.
(There are two more articles on that page regarding Bertie Ahern and a short biography of Mr Richardson)
Opinion – Same old story from Fianna Fáil
It is the Achilles heel of Fianna Fáil. Every time it appears the Soldiers of Destiny have shaken off their links to the murky world of property speculation and planning corruption, another embarrassing connection seems to surface.
Taoiseach Bertie Ahern is reported to have been ‘furious’ at the revelation last month that his chosen candidate in the Meath by-election, Cllr Tommy Reilly, was tarnished by his association with the disgraced Frank Dunlop. Cllr Reilly was dropped like a hot potato – and rightly so.
Now we discover that one of Mr Ahern’s closest associates, Des Richardson, has an almost identical association. This is not just embarrassing – it is a stark reminder that cronyism is still embedded at the very heart of the Irish political process and that Fianna Fáil, at its highest level, is still far more closely associated with property speculation than it cares to admit – or the rest of us would wish.
Mr Dunlop has gone out of his way in recent years in his efforts to persuade us that the days of the brown envelope and the quick buck are behind us, that this sort of activity was – as the former lobbyist likes to put it “part of the culture of the time” but that times have now changes, thank you very much, and that everything is now squeaky clean and above board.
It would be nice to take him at his word. But, instead, what do we discover? That one of the Taoiseach’s closest associates is still – as far as the Land Registry is concerned – a partner in a speculative property investment with somebody who has admitted to his part in wholesale bribery and corruption of the planning process.
What’s more, although Mr Dunlop’s own unsavoury role in planning corruption has been known for several years, there appears to have been no attempt to publicly terminate the relationship. Indeed, it might have gone unnoticed for years to come had the local authority not decided to compulsorily purchase a few feet of the site’s frontage for a public amenity.
Mr Ahern must take action. Either Mr Richardson must distance himself immediately – publicly and irrevocably – from Mr Dunlop, or the Taoiseach must distance himself equally clearly from Mr Richardson. There is a clear precedent – the example that was made of Cllr Reilly.
If an exception were to be made of Mr Richardson just because he happens to be a personal friend of the Taoiseach, this would be doubly monstrous. Irish politics has come a long way in recent years, we cannot afford to return to the bad old days.
Our rulers, we have subsequently discovered, were frequently venal and corrupt throughout the 1970s and ‘80s. It has taken 10 long years – and millions of euros in tribunal lawyers’ fees – to untangle this web of deceit. That work must not be undone.
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