FORMER DUNGARVAN TOWN councillor Fred Forsey Jnr has been sentenced to six years in jail with two years suspended. The former Fine Gael councillor was found guilty of six counts of corruption. He was found guilty of accepting €80,000 in bribes from developers. Each offence carried a six-year sentence but the sentences will run concurrently.

Judge Gerard Griffin, passing sentence at the Waterford District Criminal Court, sitting in Dublin this morning, said that Forsey had “gravely breached the trust of the people of Dungarvan” and that his wrongdoing had been at the “medium-range of seriousness” in terms of the corruption recorded in findings of the Mahon Tribunal’s report.

The judge noted that Forsey Jnr came from a good family but said that if the development for which he accepted bribes in order to push through land rezoning decisions had actually been built at the height of the Celtic Tiger boom, it would almost certainly now be a ghost estate.

The developer who had been alleged to have given bribes to Forsey Jnr can not yet be named because of ongoing legal action.

After the sentence was handed down, Forsey’s girlfriend Karen Morrissey broke down in tears and he was hugged by family and friends before being led away to begin his jail term.

Read: No comment from Fine Gael as Fred Forsey found guilty in corruption trial>