The Flood Tribunal has heard that the former Minister, Ray Burke, met Century Radio's bankers twice while the station was going through a financial crisis. The first time was at the instigation of Century and the second at the instigation of the banks. A former Century director, James Stafford, said Mr Burke gave assurances to senior people in the bank that the Government was committed to the station, and that measures would be put in place to support this commitment.
Mr Stafford said that the second meeting was requested by the bank, and the Minister gave further assurances. In response to a question from counsel for the Tribunal, he said he would not dispute that the Minister was doing Century a favour in his personal capacity while wearing his official hat. However, he said he did not know what the Minister’s view of his status at the meetings were.
The Tribunal heard there were no civil servants present at the second meeting, and there were no notes to the department relating to it. Mr Stafford said that looking back, this was unusual, but at the time it didn’t seem so, as they were in the middle of a crisis. He repeated that if the Minister didn’t take action, Century would have folded immediately, just months after going on air. He said that he was not aware of a view in the Department of Communications that placing a cap on RTÉ advertising was not favoured.
Earlier, Mr Stafford said that he had had no part in making a payment of £35,000 to Mr Burke. He said that he was informed of the payment by his former partner in the company two years after it was made. He added that his first knowledge of the payment to Ray Burke was when Oliver Barry tried to claim some of it back from him. He said that he and Mr Barry were in dispute over money, but that he refused to have anything to do with it. Mr Stafford told the Tribunal that he regarded as suspicious the lack of a receipt.
Tribunal lawyers pointed out that Mr Stafford told them that the first he learned of the payment was in newspaper reports of the Tribunal earlier this year. However, he now claims that this was his first real knowledge of the payment, as previous to this he did not believe it took place.
Mr Stafford's evidence has also been contradicted by a statement from his accountant, which suggests that he knew about the Burke payment before it was made. Mr Barry now claims that he made the payment on behalf of Century Radio. Previously, he told the Tribunal that it was a personal political donation.
Earlier today, Mr Stafford accused RTÉ of engaging in a dirty tricks campaign against the national independent radio station. James Stafford said that RTÉ deliberately failed to deliver Century radio's signal when the station went in air 1989. The difficulties prompted Century directors to ask the then Minister for Communications, Ray Burke, to place a cap on RTÉ's advertising revenue. He said that RTÉ had not provided them with equality of coverage as they were bound to by their contract.
He also claimed that RTÉ used its own sales team to tell customers that Century only had 35% coverage and this led to their advertising revenue dropping from a projected £2 million to £811,000. He said that this was the genesis of the financial crisis in Century. Mr Stafford said that they approached the Minister in December 1989 because they felt RTÉ was abusing its dominant position in the market. He said that RTÉ was selling advertisements at 37% of the cost of production because it had funding from the licence fee.
