Mahon Tribunal
[2] Public hearings concluded in September 2008, and following several delays due to legal challenges, the tribunal began preparing its final report.
Loughlinstown was, prior to 1990 a scenic area directly south of Dublin city on the Wexford road, site of the first dual carriageway in Ireland.
Some councillors firmly resisted the rezoning, supposedly concerned about the commercial and social welfare of nearby Dún Laoghaire but are alleged to have ensured that there was sufficient support from colleagues whose political bases were elsewhere.
Fianna Fáil politician Liam Lawlor was presented at a public meeting concerning nearby Cherrywood as his party's "planning expert".
Michael Smith, later to become chairman of environmental body An Taisce and barrister Colm Mac Eochaidh, later a Fine Gael candidate in Dublin South-East in the 2002 general election now a High Court Judge, in 1995 co-sponsored a £10,000 reward[7] for information leading to convictions for planning corruption.
James Gogarty, a retired employee of construction firm JSME, responded with information about payments to Ray Burke, a government minister and former chairman of Dublin County Council.
The tribunal was formally established on 4 November 1997 to investigate the Gogarty allegations, and also any acts related to planning processes which might have involved corruption.
The terms dictated that the Tribunal would enquire into payments to Ray Burke in the course of his long political career and examine the decisions he had made in broadcasting as well as in planning.
The government had just months earlier also established the separate Moriarty Tribunal to investigate payments to politicians Charles Haughey and Michael Lowry.
Gogarty, by now in dispute with his former employers, claimed the payment was in seeking Burke's influence to secure approval to rezone 726 acres (2.94 km2) of land at several locations in north Dublin, including Finglas, Ballymun, Balgriffin, Portmarnock and Donabate.
During a September 2006 interview with RTÉ's Bryan Dobson Ahern denied that he had received any illegal payments and claimed that some of the transactions related to unsolicited dig-outs from friends during his legal separation proceedings in 1993 and 1994.
Findings of corruption were made against 11 councillors, due to court proceedings only 6 were named Fianna Fáil's Pat Dunne (Deceased), Finbarr Hanrahan, Cyril Gallagher and G. V. Wright, Fine Gael's Tom Hand, Labour's John O'Halloran.
"[19] It found that former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern failed to "truthfully" explain source of money and it rejected his evidence of "dig-outs", and that former EU commissioner Pádraig Flynn "wrongly and corruptly" sought donation from Tom Gilmartin.
These are Fianna Fáil councillors Tony Fox, Colm McGrath, Don Lydon and G. V. Wright; and Fine Gael's Tom Hand.
[21] In 1993, the then Taoiseach Albert Reynolds and Bertie Ahern, who was then Minister for Finance, wrote to developer Owen O'Callaghan seeking a substantial donation.
However, the report said pressurising a businessman to donate money when he was seeking support for a commercial project was "entirely inappropriate, and was an abuse of political power and government authority".
[22] The main recommendations of the report are: more robust whistleblower legislation; a new planning regulator to give direction to local and regional planning authorities; new limits on political donations; a new register of lobbyists; expanded disclosure requirements for public officials; and a ban on members of the Oireachtas who are convicted of bribery from holding public office.
Bertie Ahern, Pádraig Flynn, G. V. Wright, Don Lydon, Finbarr Hanrahan and John Hannon all resigned from Fianna Fáil before they could be expelled.
[24] Fine Gael Councillor Anne Devitt said she was stepping aside from her party, while it carries out its own internal inquiries into the tribunal's findings.
