MAHON TRIBUNAL:A BUSINESSMAN involved in the Quarryvale project has said he never heard of payments being made to former taoiseach Bertie Ahern and did not believe such payments had been made.
John Deane told the Mahon tribunal he believed he would have been informed if any such payment or payments had been made. Mr Deane was an equal partner with developer Owen O'Callaghan in Riga Ltd, a company involved in the Quarryvale development in Dublin in the early 1990s.
"I am not aware of any payment by Mr O'Callaghan to Mr Ahern and I don't believe any such payment took place," Mr Deane told tribunal counsel Pat Quinn SC.
He was asked about a claim by another developer involved in the project, Tom Gilmartin, that Mr O'Callaghan had told a meeting he had an assurance "from the horse's mouth" that a rival development in Blanchardstown would not get tax designation status. "That just didn't happen," Mr Deane said. The assurance is alleged to have come from Mr Ahern, who was minister for finance at the time. Mr Deane also told Mr Quinn he had never heard Mr Gilmartin allege that irregular payments were being made to lobbyist Frank Dunlop in relation to the Quarryvale project. Mr O'Callaghan told tribunal counsel Patricia Dillon SC that he never heard it mentioned in the early 1990s that Mr Dunlop was a "bagman for politicians".
Mr O'Callaghan told of how he came to engage Mr Dunlop in March 1991, in the run-up to a Dublin County Council vote on the Quarryvale site. He said the late Liam Lawlor told him Mr Dunlop was "the one person in town who knew most of the councillors" and could introduce him to them.
He said he first met Mr Dunlop when he and Mr Gilmartin met Mr Lawlor by accident in Dáil Éireann and Mr Lawlor suggested they meet Mr Dunlop. They went straight to his offices. However, after the meeting, Mr Gilmartin said he didn't want to use Mr Dunlop's services. Mr Gilmartin was of the view he could get the required rezoning for the Quarryvale project by himself, Mr O'Callaghan said. Mr Gilmartin did not say he was against using Mr Dunlop's services because he was a "bagman for politicians" or because of his association with Mr Lawlor, Mr O'Callaghan said.
He said he could not explain how Mr Gilmartin was later able to say to gardaí and to the tribunal that Mr Dunlop had been involved in making "improper or corrupt" payments to councillors, prior to Mr Dunlop having his "road to Damascus conversion" at the tribunal and admitting making such payments. Mr O'Callaghan said that two days after his first meeting with Mr Dunlop, he phoned him in the morning and "popped in to see him later in the day". It was agreed, he said, that Mr Dunlop would lobby for the Quarryvale project.
There was no mention of Mr Dunlop making political contributions to councillors, he said. He decided not to tell Mr Gilmartin about his decision, even though he knew that as soon as he began lobbying councillors, Mr Gilmartin would hear about it.