Documents confirm my account, says Gilmartin

Property developer Tom Gilmartin yesterday said documents read out by counsel for rival property developer, Owen O'Callaghan, confirmed aspects of his account of corruption in Cork in the late 1980s.

Mr Gilmartin also told Paul Sreenan SC his account of claims Mr O'Callaghan had made to him, about payments he (Mr O'Callaghan) had made to politicians, were not due his being jealous of Mr O'Callaghan. "Jealousy is not in my make-up." He said he knew a lot of people who have made a lot of money. "I am not a bit jealous or envious."

"Including of Mr O'Callaghan?" asked Mr Sreenan. "No," he replied.

Under cross-examination Mr Gilmartin agreed that he had had telephone conversations with tribunal counsel in 1999, in which he outlined how Mr O'Callaghan had told him he had had the route of the Jack Lynch Tunnel under the Lee changed so it would emerge on to land owned by him. The rerouting was also allegedly achieved to suit Mr O'Callaghan's plans to develop a site at Mahon.

"And he told me the Fianna Fáil faction in Cork had called for a public inquiry to stall it as the election was coming up, so that the [ Garret] FitzGerald government didn't get the kudos."

He was pressed as to why he had not brought this up in his initial telephone contacts with the tribunal. He said he had not because the tribunal was looking into wrongdoings in Dublin and not in Cork or Limerick.

The decision to go ahead and build the Jack Lynch Tunnel was taken in 1991. Approval was issued by the minister for the environment in 1992, work began on it in 1995 and it opened in 1999.

Mr Sreenan put it to Mr Gilmartin the route change was decided following a feasibility report by De Leuw Chadwick O'hEocha, consultant engineers on behalf of Cork Corporation. "So there was an investigation [to stall a decision on the tunnel]?" said Mr Gilmartin. "You've confirmed it for me."

Counsel said changes Mr Gilmartin had made to his statements indicated his account of alleged corruption relating to the tunnel could not be believed.

"I have made no allegations. I told you this was all a repeat of what Mr O'Callaghan told me. How would I invent an area in Cork like Mahon I had never heard of?" He said he had never been to Cork before 2003. "I knew nothing about Cork other than the names of towns I had seen on postcards."

Counsel put it to Mr Gilmartin that he had caused Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment Micheál Martin "great distress" by his claim that Mr O'Callaghan told him he had paid the Cork TD a "six-figure sum" in the early 1990s.

"I cry no tears for the politicians in this country," replied Mr Gilmartin. "Nobody cried over my distress or my family's when I was destroyed by politicians and by your client."

"We all know you have a grievance and this is vengeance-time," said Mr Sreenan. "No, this is not about vengeance," replied Mr Gilmartin.