Developer denies Quarryvale lobbying

MAHON TRIBUNAL:CORK DEVELOPER Owen O'Callaghan has said he did not lobby former taoiseach Albert Reynolds about the Quarryvale development in March 1990, despite a diary entry recording the two men meeting in Cork.

And he told the Mahon tribunal he did not meet lobbyist Frank Dunlop and former taoiseach Bertie Ahern in Leinster House in 1989. Mr O'Callaghan said Luton-based developer Tom Gilmartin was lying when he said he saw the three men together.

At the time, Mr O'Callaghan and Mr Gilmartin were business rivals. They became partners in the Quarryvale project in west Dublin, now the Liffey Valley shopping centre, in late 1991.

Mr O'Callaghan said he got a phone call from Mr Gilmartin in March 1990 and Mr Gilmartin told him there was to be a meeting of politicians in Cork and asked if he could speak to them. "In other words could I do some lobbying for him." However, he did not go through with it.

He said he understood the meeting referred to was an annual meeting of councillors and said it would not have been appropriate to discuss the issue of enterprise zoning for Quarryvale with them.

Counsel for the tribunal, Patricia Dillon SC, highlighted a fax from Mr Gilmartin's architects to Mr O'Callaghan about the Quarryvale development. The document included a handwritten note saying Mr O'Callaghan would pick up the fax in his office at 2.30pm on March 24th, 1990.

She also highlighted a diary entry for Mr Reynolds, then minister for finance, showing a meeting with Mr O'Callaghan on March 24th in Cork Jurys Hotel. The diary also showed that Mr Reynolds attended a meeting of all-Ireland Fianna Fáil councillors in Athlone the following day with then taoiseach Charlie Haughey and then minister for the environment Pádraig Flynn.

Mr O'Callaghan said if he did meet Mr Reynolds on the 24th, it would have been to discuss developments in Cork and not Quarryvale. "I never discussed the Tom Gilmartin situation with anybody," he said.

Ms Dillon pointed out that Mr O'Callaghan referred to a meeting of councillors and that Mr Reynolds's diary confirmed that. "That is pure and total coincidence," Mr O'Callaghan said.