The ghost of GUBU again stalks the corridors

GUBU has returned with a vengeance to Irish politics with the latest instalment of Tom Gilmartin's vivid and startling evidence to a crowded planning tribunal.

Not since the Malcolm Macarthur affair has the political world seen such a grotesque, unprecedented, bizarre and unbelievable scenario unfold as that depicted yesterday by the developer.

OK, we'll have to reconsider the unprecedented bit, because once again Charles Haughey figures in the thick of things.

Surrounded by his loyal servants, Haughey is the regal figure making chit-chat in this story, while outside the shadowy figures are supposedly demanding pounds of flesh and making death threats.

Down the corridor from the Fianna Fáil rooms, there's even a cryptic supporting character, in the form of Cllr Seán Walsh, warning Gilmartin he was being double-crossed.

By this stage, the developer says, he didn't know who to trust and who not to trust and reckoned the whole place was "totally corrupt".

Gilmartin, the man with the photographic memory, used all his powers of recollection to re-create the route he says he took with Liam Lawlor through Leinster House and up to the party rooms.

The building came to resemble a rabbit warren as he guided us through the labyrinthine corridors, gangways and lifts that led Fianna Fáil's nerve-centre. As he described the seating arrangements of Charlie's cabinet, the developer gave a new meaning to the term "parliamentary sketch".

"Bring me a graphic designer," he appealed to the tribunal, "and I will paint the room, the corridor, the lift for you."

Former minister Padraig Flynn scribbled away furiously on his writing pad as the witness accused him and fellow minister Seamus Brennan of lying about their recollection of the meeting. With each day, the crowd swells as Gilmartin delivers his story of power, corruption and lies. Small knots of wellwishers gathered outside the tribunal hall, waiting for their hero to come out.

It was like the heyday of James Gogarty, the tribunal's last star witness, only five years on.

He won't always have it so good, particularly when the politicians' lawyers sink their teeth into him, but for now the plain people of Ireland have found a new hero.