Irish society’s long overdue dealings with corruption by business and local government was given a cyber tinge due to the fact that some 64,000 people downloaded the interim report of the Flood Tribunal over the internet.
The interim report of the Flood Tribunal, which retails at €1, has so far sold more than 24,000 physical copies since it was published in September, 2000 in CD-Rom form and more than 64,000 copies have been downloaded.
Last year, the tribunal began its mission to investigate 30 separate matters during the course of 20 modules of investigation — expected to last two years — into allegations of planning corruption in the Greater Dublin area.
The tribunal has so far sat for 337 days and has received over one million documents, including 610 files containing 90,000 pages in the past week. It is understood that some 190 witnesses have given evidence in public and 530 people have been formally interviewed by tribunal lawyers. Some 8,400 orders for discovery have been issued.
Another famous report into the shady goings-on in ‘respectable’ Irish society, namely the Ansbacher report into tax-dodging and money-laundering by politicians, planners, land-owners and wealthy business people, has also amassed vast sales by an interested public. Although the Ansbacher report was not released on the internet, more than 400 CD-Rom versions were sold from Government Publications Office, a spokesman said.
By John Kennedy
