Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance)

The Mahon tribunal report is vast, running to more than 3,000 pages. The most telling quote is from the introduction. It refers to how throughout the late 1980s and 1990s corruption in Irish political life was both endemic and systematic. It affected every level of government from some of the holders of top ministerial office to local councillors and its existence was widely known and tolerated. The second statement is more devastating than the first. The political and business establishment knew and accepted that something was rotten in the relationship between business and politicians. This applied not only to the political establishment, but to the business elite. Someone cannot be bribed unless there is someone wishing to bribe them.

Chapter 2 of the report dealing with Quarryvale was referred to by a previous speaker. Chapter 2, part 4 deals with the relationship between Tom Gilmartin, Owen O'Callaghan and Frank Dunlop with Allied Irish Banks. This is the rogue bank among rogue banks. It competes well with Anglo Irish Bank and National Irish Bank for the title. This bank has bought us the ICI debacle of 1985, the bogus non-resident accounts, the DIRT scandal, loan write-offs to Charlie Haughey and Garret FitzGerald, rogue trading by John Rusnak, the Faldor tax evasion scheme for executives and customer overcharging.

Let us consider the Mahon tribunal report statement about Allied Irish Banks, AIB, and its senior officials who dealt with the Quarryvale development. AIB applied considerable pressure on Tom Gilmartin to give control of the project to Owen O'Callaghan. In the process, it acquired a 20% stake in the development. The tribunal was satisfied that senior personnel at AIB were aware of the corrupt payments to councillors. Incredibly, the senior official and manager in charge of the Gilmartin account recommended to the bank's credit committee that a loan be conditional on the then Minister for the Environment, Pádraig Flynn, telephoning the bank to confirm that the site would receive tax designation status.

In November 1992, Mr. O'Callaghan informed an AIB manager, Michael O'Farrell, that the council vote on rezoning would take place in December and that substantial additional costs would likely arise. Mr. O'Farrell noted in a memorandum of the meeting that the vote would be tight, that Mr. O'Callaghan was lobbying continuously and that he had injected a further £85,000 into the situation. It is absolutely scandalous. The tribunal found that Mr. O'Farrell was made aware of the £85,000 and how it was spent on lobbying councillors. Where is Mr. O'Farrell today? He is head of intermediary services at the bailed-out AIB. AIB offered remarkable services to Frank Dunlop. He was able to fill suitcases with up to £100,000 of cash withdrawals, especially at election time. He was also able to cash cheques made out to a Barry McCarthy, a fictitious person. What does this suggest? These shenanigans were known practices in business, banking and politics.

This problem is not peculiar to Ireland. Let us consider the spending in the USA, where hundreds of millions of dollars will be spent by the wealthy and those in big business to buy the presidential elections. Across the water, we have witnessed the recent spectacle of the United Kingdom Prime Minister hosting £250,000 per head private dinners in his apartment at 10 Downing Street. This is not a case of a few bad apples in Ireland and elsewhere. It is a systematic, well-organised corruption of the democratic process by capitalism. It involves the capitalist class, big business and international finance buying a favourable climate for business. These people would not give one the proverbial steam off their wastewater without seeking something in return.

Where light touch regulation is a preference in Government contracts, low or non-existent taxation and high incomes and extraordinary personal wealth accrue. Fianna Fáil just happened to be the party in power for 61 of 80 years of this republic. It is the party caught in the quagmire and pulled into the cesspit of this type of light touch regulation and its use by capitalism and big business in this country.

This type of regulation has created a society where, as indicated in 2010 CSO figures, in a situation in which we are all supposed to be together and where we all have to make sacrifices, the gap between the richest 20% and the bottom 20% has increased by 25%. The income of the top 20% grew to five and a half times greater than the income of the bottom 20%. The 5% drop in average household income affected the poorest most and a rise in consistent poverty to 6.2% has affected 8% of children and 11% of adults of working age. To date, I have not seen a Government audit of the effect of the recent budget on children or on the poor. The mud-slinging in this debate between the Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and Labour parties makes for a disgusting spectacle. All three parties stand condemned, either for presiding over or for being aware of this endemic corruption and doing nothing. I have always been in politics with parties that did not fund themselves through bank robberies or by being bank-rolled.

The first experience I had of development planning came when I was elected as a councillor in 2004, towards the end of the process of developing the plan for 2005-11. I saw clearly then how vested interests can apply pressure on politics and councils. At that time, there was an issue with regard to the rezoning of religious lands and continual representations were being made to the council by the religious hierarchy with regard to ensuring their lands would be rezoned in a way that would bring in the greatest return on the sale of the lands. It was disgusting to see this.

The first experience I had of how the system operates came in May 2005 when the Crumlin feasibility study suddenly appeared. We were all called to a meeting in the area. A plan had been envisaged that had no legal status in planning law, but a feasibility study had been produced in which all of Crumlin village was to be transformed into a village of four and five-storey apartment blocks. A number of these apartment blocks were seen on the feasibility study plan to be on lands to the rear of the church. We did not know that within a couple of weeks, the church would sell that land to the developer making the highest bid. It was sold for €3.1 million and the plans for that land were just the start of what comprised the feasibility study. When we appealed the plans to An Bord Pleanála, irrespective of the fact that we were told the feasibility study had no legal status within the plan for 2005-11, the study was taken into consideration by the board to allow the development to go ahead.

The links between auctioneers, developers, business people, politicians and city managers became part of an endemic system following the rezoning issues and corruption in planning from 1993 onward. We have all seen examples of this in our community. For example, a business man who owned shops on Keeper Road allowed the shops go to rack and ruin and the council allowed the community hall beside them to go the same way. Then suddenly, a planning application was submitted for an eight-storey apartment block on the site. We had a public meeting in the area on the issue and most of the people in the community resisted the plan and did not want to see this apartment block developed. The council argument was that the place was in ruins and kids were banging balls against the shutters every night and it was better to build something to change the situation. At our public meeting, I was nearly pulled out of my chair by the developer who had made the planning application and Fine Gael politicians who attended the meeting tried to disrupt it because of their interests with the developer.

I also attended a meeting in Bluebell when the local area plan was being put through and again the plan was concentrated on developing apartments and on putting up houses on Lansdowne Valley, which was a lovely parkland area. This plan was opposed and when I suggested a moratorium should be put on the plan on the basis that there had been insufficient access and input to it, I was vilified by the then Fine Gael councillor who is now a Deputy in the area. I was vilified for challenging the right of property developers. Their right was sacrosanct and the people's rights were as nothing. What happened was outrageous. Throughout the Dublin 12 area, petrol stations, pubs and community halls have been closed down and their lands have been submitted for planning. Factories and businesses have been closed, for example, Unilever, Eason's, Lyons Tea, Nissan and others, all in the interest of developers and planning.

If people want to see a change from corruption, they should not vote for parties that have been involved in this. They must demand transparency and accountability. I agree that payments to political parties should be abolished.

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