Gogarty, James Martin (1917–2005), civil engineer, building company executive, and anti-corruption whistle-blower, was born 20 May 1917 in Cannon Street, Kells, Co. Meath, son of Bernard Gogarty, a mason and small-scale building contractor, and his wife Mary (née Mooney). Educated in local national and secondary schools up to the intermediate certificate, he then apprenticed as a bricklayer and plasterer. He served in An Taca Síochána (1939–42), the reserve police force established during the Emergency, then transferred to the regular Garda Síochána (1942–7), stationed in Clontarf, Dublin. While in the latter service, he studied engineering at UCD, but found the gruelling schedule of work and study excessively demanding, and took leave from university prior to his second-year examinations. On leaving the Gardaí, he worked on house construction in the Dublin area. Resuming his university studies, he completed an engineering degree (c.1960), whereupon he was employed in the architectural firm of Higginbotham and Stafford, which was engaged in the design of housing estates in the expanding Dublin suburbs.
Career with JMSE Through contacts made in this employment, in 1968 Gogarty was appointed joint managing director of a steel company based in Santry, Co. Dublin, as a protégée of Joseph Murphy senior, a Kerry-born, British-based millionaire businessman, who had recently acquired an interest in the company. Upon Murphy's acquisition in 1969 of the entire shareholding, the company was renamed Joseph Murphy Structural Engineers Ltd (JMSE), and Gogarty became sole managing director. He rapidly transformed the troubled, nearly insolvent firm into one of the leading steel-contracting businesses in Ireland, specialising in projects for semi-state companies. From his position with JMSE, Gogarty effectively managed all of Murphy's Irish interests, which included several construction and development firms, a large land bank in north Co. Dublin, and the Gaiety theatre. Diligently industrious and conscientiously frugal (he customarily took sandwiches to work rather than purchase meals unnecessarily at the company's expense), he was an exacting and censorious superior, and intolerant of opposition; doggedly driving hard bargains, he was often assigned the role of company 'fixer'. His personal intervention during a strike on the construction site of the electricity generating station in Moneypoint, Co. Clare, where JMSE were fulfilling a contract with the ESB, gave rise to accusations of intimidation of workers (early 1980s); the stress of the dispute affected his health.
Thus pursuing a moderately successful but unexceptional career, Gogarty entered the public eye only in his 80s, when he gave evidence to an investigatory tribunal established on the basis of his allegations of corruption in land rezoning decisions. Both the substance of his allegations, and the circumstances that induced him to come forward with them, were rooted in his last years with JMSE. Amid a major reorganisation of the Murphy companies in Britain and Ireland in 1982, Gogarty, aged 65, retired as JMSE managing director and was appointed non-executive chairman. Despite a strained relationship with the new management team, he continued with his accustomed energy and diligence to fulfil certain important assignments. When Murphy became alarmed by practices of the new management (described by Gogarty to the investigatory tribunal as 'a bunch of chancers' who spent the company's money 'like ewe's milk' (Ir. Times, 15 January 1999)), he enlisted Gogarty's trusty assistance in effecting their ouster, and regained control of his companies and trusts (1987–8).
Pension dispute Despite his impeccable record of loyal and conscientious service, during the 1980s Gogarty became increasingly worried and aggrieved by Murphy's dilatory attitude toward securing a pension for his retirement, and for the support of his wife and young family after his death. In May 1989 an agreement in principle was reached between Murphy and Gogarty, under which a sum of £300,000 would be allocated to purchase the latter's pension. (Shortly after this, in June–July 1989, there occurred the incidents of corruption that Gogarty would in time allege.) Within weeks, however, developments within JMSE renewed Gogarty's fears regarding both the willingness and capacity of the company to fund his pension entitlement. Amid a coincidental dispute regarding the accuracy of the company's 1988 annual accounts (on which Gogarty refused to sign off), in July 1989 he retired from JMSE, and for several years thereafter provided consultancy services to the company as per the terms of his pension package. On legal advice he placed the £700,000 proceeds from settlement of an extras claim regarding the ESB Moneypoint contract into an escrow account to ensure the honouring of his pension agreement; legal proceedings instituted by JMSE were ultimately settled on the basis of Gogarty's retention of a sufficient sum from the account to meet his pension entitlement.
The protracted pension dispute and the manner of its resolution soured relations between Gogarty and Murphy senior, and exacerbated the already tortured relations between Gogarty and Murphy's son, Joseph Murphy junior, who by 1991 controlled the family's British and Irish interests. Two cases of litigation in 1994 between Gogarty and the Murphy companies (both decided in Gogarty's favour) fuelled only further the mutual 'hatred and contempt' harboured by Gogarty and Murphy junior towards each other (Second interim report, 82). The animosity climaxed when on a night in June 1994 Murphy junior made two telephone calls to Gogarty's home in which he verbally abused Gogarty and threatened him with physical violence. Gogarty lodged a formal complaint with the Gardaí, expecting that a criminal prosecution would follow, and regarded the failure to pursue the matter as indication that the Gardaí were being corrupted by the Murphys or their powerful allies. Fearful for his and his family's safety, and resolved to obsession that Murphy junior be punished and restrained from issuing further threats, Gogarty approached several politicians and journalists with allegations of his harassment by Murphy junior and what he saw as the inadequate police response. (The investigatory tribunal, while accepting the authenticity and reasonability of Gogarty's apprehensions, would ascribe Murphy junior's threats to probable excessive alcohol consumption and not indicative of actual intent to inflict harm, and determined the Garda response to derive from sound operational decisions.)
Corruption allegations Against this background, Gogarty responded to a newspaper advertisement placed anonymously in the Irish Times (3 July 1995) by two anti-corruption campaigners (later identified as barrister Colm Mac Eochaidh and environmentalist Michael Smith), offering a £10,000 reward 'for information leading to the conviction or indictment of a person or persons for offences relating to land rezoning in the Republic of Ireland'. Gogarty's allegation that in June–July 1989 he had been party to the payment of bribes by the Murphy interests to secure favourable planning decisions regarding their north Co. Dublin properties was the most serious and substantial among some sixty responses made by members of the public to the advertisement. A series of newspaper articles, starting in March 1996, about the bribing of a senior politician, based on Gogarty's allegations as leaked to journalists by Mac Eochaidh and Smith, culminated in July 1997 in the naming of Ray Burke, prominent Fianna Fáil TD for north Co. Dublin constituencies since 1973, as the politician in question, several weeks after Burke's appointment as minister for foreign affairs in the recently formed Fianna Fáil–Progressive Democrat coalition government. (Suspicions about Burke's probity in planning matters had long been current, and he had been questioned during an inconclusive Garda investigation in 1974.) In a public statement (7 August), Burke placed Gogarty's name in the public domain; claiming himself the target of 'a vicious campaign of rumour and innuendo', Burke described receiving £30,000 from Gogarty on behalf of JMSE as 'a totally unsolicited political contribution' during the 1989 general election campaign, and opined that Gogarty might be the source of the media allegations (Ir. Times, 8 August 1997). Though Burke reasserted his version of events in the dáil chamber (10 September), further newspaper and magazine articles disputed his account, and correspondence dating from 1989 that seemed to confirm a critical portion of Gogarty's allegations was published. With political pressure mounting, Taoiseach Bertie Ahern announced the government's intention to establish a tribunal of inquiry, and on 7 October Burke resigned both his ministry and his dáil seat.
On 4 November 1997 the tribunal was formally established under Mr Justice Feargus Flood. After lengthy negotiations and much vacillation, Gogarty agreed to cooperate with the tribunal when granted immunity from prosecution. In the months before the tribunal's public hearings, anonymous sources leaked stories to the media that were hostile to Gogarty, questioning his credibility, motivation, and mental competence, casting him as an untrustworthy, vengeful crank, and speculating that he would back out of giving evidence.
Planning tribunal: hearings On 12 January 1999 the Flood tribunal opened its public hearings with the taking of Gogarty's evidence, which continued till 28 April. (Numerous delays were occasioned when Gogarty was impaired by illness, over-agitation, or fatigue, and by legal wrangles (sometimes heated) over procedure and leaks to media.) From the outset, Gogarty's performance belied the premature media innuendo regarding his competence. Aged 81, suffering from multiple health problems, walking unsteadily with the aid of a stick, Gogarty proved 'as firm in mind as he was frail in body' (Ir. Times, 15 January 1999), and stubbornly resolved that his story in its entirety be told. His four months of testimony displayed a seemingly remarkable recall and command of detail, narrated discursively, and peppered with impromptu outbursts and asides, and homely, idiosyncratic turns of phrase. Crotchety and combative, he was neither awed by the pomp of legal procedure and protocol, nor intimidated by cross-examination.
Gogarty alleged that, on behalf of JMSE, he had been party in June 1989 to the payment of a bribe to Ray Burke, then minister for communications, and for industry and commerce, to secure Burke's 'support and political influence on councillors' (Second interim report, 73) for the rezoning of some 700 acres of Murphy-owned land from agricultural to residential use, thereby vastly increasing its market value. Gogarty testified that Murphy senior, fearing the tax implications of allegations made in an on-going legal case, had initially determined to sell his north county Dublin lands quickly and remove his assets outside the jurisdiction; others in the Murphy organisation were reluctant to sell at agricultural value and wished to retain the lands for their development potential. In this context, JMSE were approached by developer Michael Bailey (with whom JMSE had previously done business) with a participation proposal, whereby Bailey would obtain 50 per cent ownership of the lands in return for his assistance in procuring rezoning and bye-law approval. According to Gogarty, Bailey maintained that selected members of Dublin county council would have to be bribed to secure a favourable planning decision, and described Burke as the 'Mister Fixit' who controlled the votes of some half-dozen Fianna Fáil councillors, who in turn could ensure a majority vote; Bailey also asserted his own ability to 'cross the political divide' and marshal councillors of other political parties, and his capacity to secure the cooperation of critically placed county officials.
Gogarty testified that arrangements were made for JMSE and Bailey to make matching payments totalling £80,000 to Burke. He described accompanying Bailey and Murphy junior to Burke's home at Briargate, Swords, Co. Dublin, where two envelopes were handed over to Burke: one from JMSE, which Gogarty knew to contain £30,000 in cash and a cheque for £10,000; and one from Bailey that he assumed to contain an equivalent sum of £40,000, though 'there could be feathers in it for all I know' (Ir. Times, 20 January 1999). In his most celebrated piece of evidence, Gogarty described the car journey to Burke's home in the company of Bailey and Murphy junior: 'I don't think there was a whole lot said, but I said "Will we get a receipt for this money?" and Bailey said "Will we, fuck!"' (ibid.) – a remark euphemised by Flood in the tribunal's report as 'a colourful and dismissive response in the negative' (Second interim report, 75).
Gogarty's allegations were strenuously denied by those he implicated, all of whom outlined alternative versions of the events, claimed inconsistencies in Gogarty's evidence, and made counter-allegations regarding Gogarty's own conduct and motivations. Gogarty admitted his own culpability in corrupt behaviour: 'I came here to the tribunal to get the truth, warts and all, and if I did wrong I am ready to take my place in the queue to pay for it' (Ir. Times, 15 January 1999); 'warts and all' was Gogarty's consistent refrain when challenged regarding the probity of his own admitted acts. Under cross-examination that blended drama and comedy, Gogarty jousted spiritedly with counsel for JMSE and for Bailey. He chided the lawyers who were 'getting £1,350 a day for laughing at me' (Ir. Times, 15 January 1999); accused a barrister who repeatedly objected to his line of evidence of 'objecting to the truth coming out' (Ir. Times, 20 January 1999); and excoriated the legal profession generally as being 'worse than bloody criminals' (Ir. Times, 24 March 1999). Told that his evidence amounted to a series of 'malicious inventions', he quipped: 'Lord, if I had a patent on all these inventions, I'd be a bloody millionaire' (Ir. Times, 4 March 1999). When one barrister accused him of making 'long rambling speeches from the dock', Gogarty, mindful of his efforts to assure immunity from prosecution, was aghast: 'From the dock? Put me in the dock, that's where they want me, in the dock. Oh Jesus, Oh Mother of God!' (Ir. Times, 18 February 1999).
Gogarty's testimony attracted capacity audiences to the tribunal hearings at Dublin Castle, and was made familiar to a wider audience by nightly re-enactments of highlights of the tribunal proceedings, extracted from the official transcripts, by actors Joe Taylor (taking the part of Gogarty) and Malcolm Douglas, on journalist Vincent Browne's RTÉ radio programme. (Taylor and Douglas later adapted the tribunal transcripts – along with those from the contemporaneous Moriarty tribunal into the financial affairs of politicians Charles J. Haughey (1925–2006) and Michael Lowry (b. 1953) – into a touring stage revue.) Gogarty was perceived by many as a plain-speaking Everyman who was lifting a veil on an unsavoury feature of Irish public life that had been long suspected but rarely proven, while doughtily defying the inbred elites of wealth, politics, and the law. He attained an especial celebrity among fellow pensioners of a humble-born, self-made experience. His very flaws – his middle-ranking culpability in the misdeeds he alleged, his compromised motives for coming clean – only enhanced the Everyman characterisation: where corruption is endemic, who is entirely spotless?
Planning tribunal: findings On the conclusion of his evidence (28 April 1999) Gogarty returned to the privacy of his retirement, and refused all requests for interviews, comments, or publicity. The Flood tribunal's 'Gogarty module', comprising the examination of his allegations, continued till December 2000. The tribunal's second interim report, published in September 2002, vindicated the most significant of his allegations regarding the payment to Burke, which it described as having the hallmarks of a secret payment for other than legitimate political purposes. Concluding that Gogarty's role throughout the affair was that of a functionary, whose actions in every respect were undertaken at the behest of Murphy senior, the tribunal found that the payment made to Burke was a corrupt payment, undertaken for the reasons alleged by Gogarty. The only significant contention by Gogarty on which the tribunal could not make a determination was the size of the payment to Burke; the tribunal found that the payment from JMSE was no less than £30,000, and may have been £40,000.
The planning tribunal also upheld Gogarty's allegations of a payment of over £12,000 made in July 1989 by Murphy junior to George Redmond, the Dublin city and county assistant manager, for his role in securing a substantial reduction in the normally applicable service charges and levies on a Murphy property. The finding was included in the tribunal's third interim report, completed in September 2002, but withheld from publication till January 2004, so as not to prejudice Redmond's impending trial on separate corruption charges. (Found guilty of these charges in November 2003 and sentenced to twelve-months' imprisonment, Redmond was released in July 2004 when the conviction was overturned as 'unsafe and unsatisfactory' by the court of criminal appeal owing to discrepancies between witness testimony and documentary evidence that was unavailable to the defence at the trial.) Burke served a six-month prison sentence in 2005 on tax evasion charges. As of June 2012 no person has faced criminal prosecution on any matter relating to Gogarty's evidence to the planning tribunal.
Family; death; legacy Gogarty married Anna O'Grady, who was some twenty years his junior; they had four sons and three daughters. They resided for some time in Clontarf, and then in Baldoyle, Co. Dublin. Gogarty died 15 September 2005 in Beaumont hospital, Dublin; the funeral was from the Roman catholic church in Baldoyle to Fingal cemetery. Remarking on his 'unique personality', Justice Flood called him 'probably the greatest character I met in the course of my entire legal career' (Ir. Times, 19 September 2005).
Journalist Paul Cullen, who covered the Gogarty module of the planning tribunal for the Irish Times, posited that Gogarty was the most prominent octogenarian in Irish public life since Éamon de Valera (qv). Unlike de Valera, however, he only attained to prominence after passing the age of 80. His allegations opened a Pandora's box of alleged corruption and cronyism, regarding the probity of the planning process, and monies received under questionable circumstances by elected politicians at local and national level, and by appointed officials. The planning tribunal launched on the basis of Gogarty's allegations sat for fifteen years (1997–2012), the longest tribunal of inquiry in the history of the Irish state (Justice Flood retired in June 2003, and was replaced by a panel of three judges chaired by Justice Alan Mahon), and examined the financial affairs of such prominent figures as Liam Lawlor (qv), EC Commissioner Pádraig Flynn (b. 1939), and Taoiseach Bertie Ahern (b. 1951).
In the course of an action taken by Murphy junior and another JMSE director regarding the planning tribunal's refusal to award their legal costs, it was disclosed that Justice Flood had edited Gogarty's witness statement so as to excise his allegations of serious impropriety against several prominent individuals (including Burke, another politician, and a law officer) regarding a matter not investigated by the tribunal, in part to avoid revealing the individuals' identities. In April 2010 the supreme court found, and the tribunal conceded, that the material (to which it appeared no foundation could be established) was incorrectly withheld in that it was relevant to the issue of Gogarty's credibility on all matters that he was alleging. (On the substantive issue of costs, the court overturned the tribunal's findings that the JMSE directors had hindered and obstructed its inquiry, because such actions were criminal offences and thus beyond the tribunal's competence to determine, and invalid as a basis for refusing costs. The tribunal eventually withdrew all its findings regarding hindrance and obstruction against any individual.)
On foot of this decision, Redmond revived an action he had initiated in 2005 against the tribunal's findings, resulting in a settlement (December 2014) whereby the tribunal withdrew all findings of corruption against him. The tribunal subsequently withdrew (January 2015) all findings of corruption based on Gogarty's evidence against Burke, and the JMSE and Bailey interests. (Findings of corruption against Burke and other individuals in other of the tribunal's modules remained in place.) The tribunal temporarily removed relevant portions of the second and third interim reports from its website, and requested removal of the reports from public libraries, pending preparation of revised versions.