Frank Dunlop - Public Relations Consultant

Public Relations Consultant

Dunlop left the civil service in 1986 and became a public relations consultant with Dublin firm, Murray Consultants. He had a director's role which involved developing a portfolio of clients and he head a target fee income to deliver annually. Access to government enables a public relations consultant to be, in effect, a public affairs consultant and Dunlop's immediate prior experience made him uniquely qualified in this respect.

He resigned from Murray Consultants in 1989 and established his own firm, Frank Dunlop & Associates. He brought his client portfolio with him, paying the parters of Murray Consultants an agreed sum over a period of two or three years. By this stage Dunlop had garnered a knowledge of the essential elements of the Irish planning process although he has no formal training in planning or architecture.

Dunlop told The Mahon Tribunal, in June 2006, that he kept a stash of cash to bribe county councillors on a regular basis in the 18 property development transactions he was involved with as a public relations consultant. He has described how several politicians telephoned him in panic trying to discover how much he had paid them when bribery allegations first emerged. Liam Lawlor introduced him to landowners and developers.