Dermot Desmond and Village
Response to Village's AIB story, 4-10 January 2007
Village Magazine,
Village Communications Limited,
44 Westland Row,
Dublin 2.
9th January 2007
Village – Issue 28 December 2006 to 3 January 2007 – Issue 118 “Desmond and the Tribunal”
Dear Sirs,
The Moriarty Tribunal investigated Charlie Haughey's affairs for over nine years and came up with a number of what the Tribunal may call ‘findings' but what should be more accurately described as theories. I am disappointed but not surprised that you reported on the Tribunal's conclusions without actually thinking them through and seeing them for what they are. Like the Moriarty Tribunal, you are left resorting to hypotheses and rumours in the absence of facts.
You state that I was less than cooperative with the Tribunal. You say that I declined to provide information after my press statements in January 1998 until March 1999. However you neglected to continue quoting from the Moriarty Report where it is noted that I was waiting firstly for the delivery of a Supreme Court judgment and secondly for the Tribunal to furnish a formal clarification of its terms of reference, both such situations being entirely outside my control.
The Tribunal can assert all it likes that my motives for making payments to Mr Haughey were connected with the public office of Taoiseach formerly held by Mr Haughey. This is a nonsense and smacks of desperation by the Tribunal, and indirectly verifies my position that all payments which I made to Mr Haughey were after he had left public office.
You state in bold print that the Tribunal was unable to make a finding that the disclosed payments were the only payments made by me to Mr Haughey. Do you think it is legitimate for the Tribunal to turn around the presumption that a person is innocent until proven guilty, by merely floating an observation that they could not say these were the only payments? Taking this line of “analysis”, the Moriarty Tribunal could have said that as it did not have access to your private accounts, it could not make a finding that you did not make payments to Mr Haughey. It demonstrates the lack of professionalism and integrity of the Moriarty counsel who would be kicked out of court if they tried to rely on such unfounded assumptions.
I am extremely surprised that you state that Mr Haughey “expressed disappointment with Desmond's neglect (socially) of him”. This is simply untrue and requires immediate correction. I have tremendous respect and admiration for Mr Haughey and his family. I kept in touch with Mr Haughey on a regular basis. I shared many private social occasions with Mr Haughey and his family and he would have also met with my family on numerous occasions. This insult cannot be left standing on the record.
Your comments on land at Dublin Airport and Aer Rianta are unbalanced and damaging. You neglected to make the fundamental point that the land in question was landlocked, being surrounded by other land owned by Aer Rianta. If that fact had been evident in your article people would have been able to judge for themselves why the Board did not sanction the “knockout bid” suggested by Lisney's but instead offered a price based on Aer Rianta holding the key to the land. You deliberately distorted the truth to pave the way for your story suggesting that I set up this whole land deal for Ciaran Haughey, allowing him as part of a consortium to put in a low bid for the land. For the record I did not know that Ciaran Haughey was interested in bidding for the land. The other fundamental fact which you neglected to disclose was that the land only appreciated in value a number of years later after I had left Aer Rianta, when Brian Cowen as Minister for Transport (against the advice of the civil servants) instructed Aer Rianta to allow rights of way over the previously landlocked land. By being selective with the facts, the clear inference is that I somehow orchestrated that Aer Rianta would hold back on bidding for the land so that Ciaran Haughey's consortium could buy the land. You are essentially inferring that I did not do my job properly as Chairman of Aer Rianta; that I did a favour for Ciaran Haughey and indirectly Charlie Haughey; and that I was corrupt in putting the Haughey family interests ahead of my obligations to Aer Rianta. This is total and utter fabrication on your part and is grossly defamatory. It is a seriously unfair and damaging piece of journalism and requires an urgent apology from you. I will also be seeking damages for a charity of my choice to go some way towards making amends for this deceitful story.
I reserve the right to pursue this issue further should I not receive a satisfactory apology and proposal for damages.
Yours sincerely,
Dermot F. Desmond
Dermot Desmond
Chairman, IIU
10 January 2007
Dear Mr Desmond,
I am replying to your letter of 9 January.
We gave a fair and accurate report of those parts of the Moriarty Tribunal report relevant to you.
The comment that you were less than co-operative with the Tribunal was “fair comment” based on facts that are true.
Re the “insult” contained in the report that Charles Haughey “expressed disappointment with (your) neglect of him”, this was a fair and accurate account of what Charles Haughey told me. Incidentally, I told a colleague of your's of this remark by Mr Haughey shortly after it was made, which was at least six months before Mr Haughey died.
Re the land adjacent to Dublin airport, I fully accept your bona fides in refusing, as chairman of Aer Rianta, which at the time owned Dublin airport, to accept the advice of Lisney's to make a “knock out” bid for the lands, given that the lands were landlocked by property owned by Aer Rianta. I agree with your contention that the lands on offer could have been obtained at a later stage by Aer Rianta for a far lesser price. I believe that the evidence, so far presented at the Planning Tribunal, vindicates your position on this. Nevertheless it was relevant to point out that among the other bidders for the lands was a company part owned by Ciaran Haughey, of whom you otherwise were supportive.
But I accept your actions in respect of these lands were taken in the best interests of Aer Rianta.
We went to some lengths to ensure we were fair to you in our coverage of the Moriarty Tribunal's findings concerning you, as evidenced by our publication, in full, of your statement in response to the publication of the report.
If you wish to make any further observations on our coverage or on the Moriarty Tribunal report itself we will publish those, subject to the usual constraints.
Yours sincerely,
Vincent Browne
Editor