State witness Jonathan Dowdall paid €15k from Dublin City Council during short stint as councillor

Dowdall, who was sentenced to four years in prison in October after he pleaded guilty to facilitating the murder of David Byrne at the Regency Hotel in 2016, also claimed a further €3,310.79 for ‘meeting expenses’.

Jonathan Dowdall received more than €15,000 in salary and expenses from Dublin City Council in his short stint as a Sinn Fein councillor, we can reveal.

The father-of-four, who also owned an electrical company at the time which employed 12 people, was paid a Representational Payment of €11,981.26 between May 2014 and his resignation on February 15, 2015.

The payment is a councillor’s salary and is paid on a fortnightly basis.

Dowdall, who was sentenced to four years in prison in October after he pleaded guilty to facilitating the murder of David Byrne at the Regency Hotel in 2016, also claimed a further €3,310.79 for “meeting expenses”.

Documents obtained and analysed by this newspaper through a Freedom of Information Request show that in total the married Dubliner pocketed €15,292.05 for the nine months that he spent on the council.

In January 2015, state witness Dowdall tortured, waterboarded, and threatened to chop up a man who went to his home to purchase a motorbike.

A month after the torture, in February, Dowdall resigned from Dublin City Council and Sinn Fein.

They include subsistence, travel, and a fixed rate but an individual breakdown of each was not available.