THIS WAS THE FIRST I HEARD ABOUT IT
An extraordinary admission from the Housing Minister on local authority protection scandal:
EOGHAN MURPHY was unaware protection money was allegedly paid to criminals by Dublin City Council, he claimed yesterday.
This is despite a fellow minister and the council being informed over two years ago of issues surrounding protection rackets on building sites.
In an extraordinary admission, the Housing Minister said that he had only heard of the claims for the first time yesterday in media reports of court proceedings.
Speaking yesterday, Mr Murphy said: ‘The first I became aware of this was this morning... so my officials have
been working in the background with DCC to try and get as much information as possible. I understand an investigation is ongoing in DCC but I want to know what’s happening here as soon as possible.’
Mr Murphy also told RTÉ: ‘If this happened, it’s clearly unacceptable behaviour and I can’t condone it but I do need more information before I can come to those kinds of conclusions.’
The minister said that he was unaware that Minister Catherine Byrne had been contacted about the issue in 2016.
The High Court was this week told the council paid ‘security’ or protection money to the leader of a Dublin drugs gang, and also to a man who was connected to three murders.
The details emerged during a case taken by the Criminal Assets Bureau against the two men.
CAB was granted orders against Derek ‘Dee Dee’ O’Driscoll, 46, of Meagans Lane, Crooksling, Saggart, Co. Dublin, and David Reilly, 36, of Croftgrove, Ballyfermot, Dublin, seizing assets of almost €300,000.
However, in a statement yesterday, Dublin City Council denied it paid protection money to the two west Dublin criminals to stop violence and intimidation at social housing construction sites in the Ballyfermot area.
It also announced that it had ordered an independent investigation into the matter.
CAB investigated extortion at three construction sites in the Ballyfermot/Cherry Orchard area of west Dublin.
These were the Adston Ltd site on the junction of Cherry Orchard drive and avenue; MYD Construction Ltd on the junction of Blackditch Road and Orchard Lawns; and ABM Design and Build, which had a site at Elmdale Drive.
The Irish Daily Mail understands that CAB referred these cases of potential extortion to senior garda colleagues at Dublin Metropolitan West, where an investigation remains ongoing.
The High Court was told that ‘an official of Dublin City Council’ informed Adston the council had employed O’Driscoll and Reilly to carry out ‘fence maintenance’ at its site in the area.
Adston told CAB they paid €1,500 plus VAT per week to both Reilly and O’Driscoll and the company ‘considered this to be for protection’.
The High Court heard that the ‘fence maintenance’ service O’Driscoll and Reilly were offering was ‘a fiction’ and no such service existed.
Instead, the court heard, they directed the anti-social behaviour and when weekly payments to them were commenced, the violence stopped.
In a statement yesterday evening, Dublin City Council announced an investigation into the matter, saying: ‘The City Council is arranging for an independent investigation to be carried out into all aspects of its involvement in this matter,’ and added that it ‘does not condone the payment of protection money by any of its contractors’ and ‘no payments were made by the City Council to the individuals concerned’.
Vacant sites in the area had attracted ‘severe anti-social behaviour over the years’, it explained.
It said a ‘legitimate contractor was engaged to secure the fencing on the site and to protect the fence and the enabling works, pending the appointment of a contractor to construct the new social housing’.
It said the council had been aware of ‘an extraordinary level of intimidation and criminal activity directed at this contractor’s staff, the City Council’s own staff and at the building site’ and gardaí were ‘fully appraised’ of ‘the very serious difficulties being experienced by the contractor on the site’.
The council said it was ‘concerned’ that two staff members were identified in the High Court ‘without regard to their personal safety and without having been given notice. It is worth pointing out that both of these officers cooperated fully with the CAB investigation’, it added.
Well-placed security sources last night told the Mail that gardaí ‘accept’ that Dublin City Council were not directly paying protection money to criminals.’
The High Court heard Westside Engineering made payments to Reilly of €1,200 per week.
The company was told this could then be reclaimed from the council, with nine payments made.
MDY Construction initially declined to pay. Safety fears about subsequent antisocial behaviour then brought work to a halt at the site, in December 2016.
When the ‘fence maintenance’ services of Reilly and O’Driscoll were engaged in early 2017 the anti-social behaviour stopped, the court heard.
Speaking to RTÉ’s News at One, Sinn Féin TD Aenghus Ó Snodaigh said that he was made aware of the extortion almost two years ago and attempted to contact Junior Minister Catherine Byrne about the issue.
When asked about this yesterday, Deputy Byrne said that she received an email about the incident on Christmas Eve but did not read it until December 29 when it was brought to her attention by someone in her office. She said she subsequently contacted Dublin City Council about the information and since the matter was brought to the attention of gardaí she said that her
Independent investigation Her job on the matter was over
job on this was finished because the matter was being investigated.
Speaking about the matter on RTÉ, Fianna Fáil Justice spokesman Jim O’Callaghan said that there may have been ‘awareness’ of the alleged practice but added ‘there’s a real surprise that a local authority may have been knowingly involved in it’.
The Mail asked Minister Byrne why she had not informed the Housing Minister about the incident sooner.
The Mail also asked Minister Murphy for a comment on the matter, which wasn’t received on going to press.