Former Irish Government press secretary Frank Dunlop was today jailed for 18 months and fined 30,000 euro (£26,000) for corruption after bribing councillors to rezone land around Dublin for lucrative development deals.

The one-time lobbyist among Ireland's political elite admitted five counts of corruption more than eight years after first disclosing his role in the sleaze scandal.

Dunlop, 62, of Dunboyne, Co Meath, pleaded guilty to making payments of between IR£1,000 and IR£3,000 (Irish punts) to several politicians to re-zone swathes of land around Dublin for development.

Dunlop could have faced maximum penalties of up to seven years in jail and/or a 50,000-euro fine for the corruption charges.

Judge Frank O'Donnell, at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court, sentenced Dunlop to two years in jail with the last six months suspended.

"Word must go out that the corruption of politicians or anyone in public office will attract serious penalties," the judge said.

"This requires a custodial sentence that amounts to more than a rap on the knuckles."

Dunlop hugged and kissed his wife and daughter in the courtroom before leaving through a side door with prison guards.

The judge had told him that although there were no readily identifiable victims of his crime, he had no doubt his actions seriously undermined the confidence of the public in our democratic system.

"In this case the public, institutions of the state and the democratic public are the victims" he added.

Judge O'Donnell said the former lobbyist's motive was generated by gain and that even over a five-year period he had no hesitation in renewing his corruption activity.

"You had every opportunity to reflect what you were about," he added.

Disgraced spindoctor lifted lid on land bribes

Disgraced spindoctor Frank Dunlop was the reluctant whistleblower who blew the lid on a murky world of bribes to Irish politicians in dark corners of pubs.

Only when the lobbyist was cornered at an anti-sleaze inquiry in 2000, did he finally divulge details about a litany of payments to corrupt the planning process.

Ironically, Dunlop routinely kept meticulous diaries and telephone records and it was these documents that helped lawyers uncover more than a decade of crooked deals which multiplied land prices through favourable council decisions.

After a brief journalist career, including a stint as an RTE correspondent in Belfast, Kilkenny-born Dunlop became press officer with Ireland's largest political party, Fianna Fail in 1974, based in the parliamentary headquarters, Leinster House.

He later became government press secretary under successive Fianna Fail governments from 1977 to 1982.

He also advised scandal-hit Taoiseach Charles Haughey, who was later found to have received millions of euro from businessmen during his career.

After Fianna Fail lost power in 1982, Dunlop incredibly managed to secure a senior civil servant's role in the administration led by Fianna Fail's bitter political rival, Fine Gael.

He later worked with the Department of Environment under Minister John Boland and gained a detailed knowledge of the Irish planning process.

Dunlop left the civil service in 1986 and used his contacts with politicians in his new role as a public relations consultant and after amassing an impressive portfolio of clients, he struck out on his own to establish his own firm, Frank Dunlop & Associates in 1989.

He began to increasingly focus on helping developers "buy votes" at council meetings to approve projects such as shopping centres or housing developments.

From 1997 to 2000, Dunlop co-presented a political chat show on the state broadcaster, RTE.

However, RTE immediately dropped him after news began to emerge from the long-running Tribunal into Certain Planning Matters and Payments that he had paid bribes to politicians.

The 12-year inquiry, which will issue its final damning report next year, has sat for more than 900 days and could cost the taxpayer up to 300 million euro.

When he first took the witness stand in 2000, the tribunal's then chairman Judge Feargus Flood rejected Dunlop's initially coy evidence by asking him to reflect overnight on his position.

Most expected Dunlop to stone-wall again in the witness box the following day but the ashen-faced father-of-one suddenly cracked.

He began to reveal payments that he had made to named politicians stretching back several years.

Over the next 124 days on the stand he told how he kept a stash of cash to bribe county councillors on a regular basis.

The money was sometimes handed over in brown paper bags in pubs, hotels and even the grounds of a psychiatric hospital in south Dublin.

When the allegations first emerged, several panicked politicians telephoned him trying to discover how much he had paid them.

Long before Dunlop stood down from the witness box his public relations career was in ruins.

Today's 18-month sentence, which Judge Frank O'Donnell said was "more than a rap on the knuckles" will set down a marker for possible future prosecutions of politicians who accepted bribes.

Dunlop is believed to have been introduced to many landowners and developers by late Fianna Fail TD Liam Lawlor, who later served three jail terms for failing to co-operate with the Mahon Tribunal. He died in a car crash outside Moscow in October 2005.

In recent years, opposition parties have pressed for laws to regulate political lobbying in a bid to stop any chance of history repeating itself. The Greens, now in government, want an outright ban on corporate donations.

Dunlop wrote a book about his time in politics, including his relationship with former premiers including Haughey, Yes Taoiseach, in 2004.

He graduated with a law degree from Griffith College Dublin in 2007.