Gilmartin would have created 'something special' at Quarryvale

Mahon tribunal:The development at Quarryvale in west Dublin would have been "entirely different" if property developer Tom Gilmartin had remained with the project, the tribunal heard yesterday.

The tribunal was told that the development, now known as the Liffey Valley Shopping Centre, would have included a health centre, a Garda station, civic offices and a library, as well as a bus station and free bus service to Clondalkin.

Mr Gilmartin said he would have built these facilities from profits made from the increased value of the site. "My role in it was not to make a fortune and run, my role in it was to . . . bring in the investment and create something special in the area," he said. "I was not there to make a killing, but then I'm a fool, I suppose."

Former minister of state and Dublin county councillor Eithne Fitzgerald said yesterday that she did not recall fellow Labour councillor Joan Burton making "loud, frantic and public efforts" to get her to change her vote on Quarryvale in December 1992.

Ms Fitzgerald had voted for a motion which would see town centre status given to Quarryvale, with a retail cap of 250,000 square feet. At the time, the tribunal heard, the Labour group on the council was against the Quarryvale development.

Ms Fitzgerald told tribunal counsel Patricia Dillon SC that she voted for the motion because two previous motions - not to rezone, or to rezone and cap retail space at 100,000 sq ft - had been rejected. She said if the 250,000 sq ft cap motion did not go through, she feared a motion with unlimited retail would pass.

The tribunal heard that former Fianna Fáil press secretary Frank Dunlop said Ms Burton had made efforts to get Ms Fitzgerald to change her vote.

He said he and the Labour group appeared surprised at the way she had voted, and Ms Burton had shouted: "Eithne, no, you have made a mistake." But, he said, "Eithne kept her head down and did not change her vote".

Ms Fitzgerald said she did not recall the incident. "People may take a view that I was actually voting for Quarryvale. That wasn't what was in my head," she said.