The former assistant Dublin city and county manager, George Redmond, has gone on trial at the Circuit Criminal Court charged with two counts of corruption.
Mr Redmond is charged with receiving a corrupt payment of £10,000 between October 1985 and June 1989 from a former Fianna Fáil councillor, the late Pat Dunne.
The money was given in relation to the compulsory purchase of land at Buzzardstown near Blanchardstown in Dublin.
Mr Redmond has pleaded not guilty.
Prosecuting lawyer Pauline Whalley told the jury of nine men and three women that the prosecution does not have to prove that Mr Redmond did anything dishonest as a result of the payment, but simply that he received it.
She said Mr Redmond was promoted to his position of assistant city and county manager in the 1970s. It was a position of extreme power, influence and status, she added.
She said that in March 1999, Mr Redmond told two senior garda officers that he had received the money from Cllr Dunne in relation to Buzzardstown.
He said he had signed a compulsory purchase order relating to the land at the direction of the city and county manager. But the prosecution says he told the gardaí Mr Dunne did not know that, and although Mr Redmond did not know why he gave him the money, he accepted it.
She urged the jury to put away any sympathy they may have for Mr Redmond, who will be 84 in June, and to put aside anything they may have heard about him.
Mr Redmond's defence counsel, Brendan Grehan, told the jury Mr Redmond had said on oath in May 2000 that he did not receive any money from Cllr Dunne, and at that stage had apologised to Mr Dunne's family for any suggestion that he had received such money.
