Ahern and O'Callaghan met on tax deal, says Gilmartin

Owen O'Callaghan and Bertie Ahern held a meeting shortly before the government fell in December 1994 to ensure that a shopping centre development in Athlone was given tax designation, the tribunal was told yesterday.

The meeting was held after the then taoiseach, Albert Reynolds, intervened in the matter, the tribunal heard.

Paul Sreenan SC, counsel for the Cork-based developer Owen O'Callaghan, yesterday continued his cross-examination of developer Tom Gilmartin.

Mr Gilmartin said he had been told by an anonymous caller that tax designation for the Golden Island shopping centre development was arranged with the then minister for finance, Mr Ahern, at a meeting just before the government fell. "Bertie Ahern had got paid, but he hadn't acted," Mr Gilmartin said.

"And Owen O'Callaghan had to go to Albert and Albert had to intervene to get the designation through before the government fell, which culminated in a meeting with Owen O'Callaghan and Bertie Ahern the night or night or two before the government actually fell."

Mr Gilmartin said that in the same phone call he was told that Mr Reynolds was paid £40,000.

Mr Sreenan pressed Mr Gilmartin to say whether the alleged £40,000 payment was made in connection with Golden Island or in connection with land near Mr Gilmartin's development at Quarryvale, purchased by the Industrial Development Agency (IDA).

Mr Gilmartin said that the anonymous caller told him it was paid for Golden Island.

Mr Sreenan pointed out that Mr Gilmartin had previously said the money was paid to Mr Reynolds by Mr O'Callaghan to ensure that a piece of Dublin Corporation land, off the Fonthill Road, would be purchased by the IDA and not by a rival developer.

"Are you stringing together bits of information that you believed that you received in order to create some story, different from that which you originally heard?" Mr Sreenan asked.

"No, I am not," Mr Gilmartin replied.

Mr Sreenan also asked Mr Gilmartin why he did not tell the tribunal about payments to Mr Reynolds in his affidavit, sworn in October 1998, including an alleged payment of £150,000.

"A 10-year litany of corrupt activity I was put through - it was difficult, very difficult to get it all together in one evening," he said.

"I came to the conclusion the place was totally corrupt . . . consequently, who got money here or who got money there . . . who the players and the actors in the whole scheme of things was irrelevant," he added.

Mr Gilmartin also told the tribunal that he made tape- recordings of threats made against him by various parties, including a threat made by a Sinn Féin councillor when he visited a pub in Clondalkin with Mr O'Callaghan.

"I had six tapes of conversations . . . and I had a small dictaphone on which I taped," he said. Although he had mentioned the tapes to his solicitor, Noel Smyth, he said, he did not mention them to the tribunal because he no longer had them. Everything he had relating to Ireland had been burned by his children on Guy Fawkes Night, 1996.

Mr Sreenan asked who the "Charlie" was who he had alleged to Mr Smyth had also sent him a threat. Mr Gilmartin said it would have been the then taoiseach, Charles Haughey.

He said a man called Jim Palmer had delivered that threat to him when he met him at his request in an office in Great Portland Street, London.

"He told me the taoiseach said I wasn't a ball-player, and the taoiseach was not happy with my attitude," Mr Gilmartin said.

Mr Sreenan asked if he remembered who made a third threat he had alleged - that he would "end up in the f . . . ing Liffey if he didn't shut his mouth". Mr Gilmartin replied that it was "one of the faceless people who operate around certain of our leaders".

In a colourful aside, Mr Gilmartin related how his father had "done his bit for the country", had earned four medals in 1916, and had been taken out of his house to be executed by "one of his own", General Mac Eoin. He said that his father's mother had thrown herself in front of him, and so he was taken to the Curragh instead.

"He didn't fight for the country . . . for a shower of shysters to run it," Mr Gilmartin said.