Some surprising stories told by Tom Gilmartin have turned out to be correct, writes Colm KeenaPublic Affairs Correspondent
AFTER YESTERDAY'S evidence, it is not inconceivable that the tribunal will fail to clear former taoiseach Bertie Ahern of the allegation that he received money from developer Owen O'Callaghan.
It is already clear that the tribunal has reason to find that Ahern has failed to explain the large amounts of money lodged to his accounts in the 1993 to 1995 period.
The inquiry into Ahern's finances began after Tom Gilmartin, O'Callaghan's former partner in the development of the Quarryvale, now Liffey Valley centre in the early 1990s, said he had been told by O'Callaghan of payments he had made to Ahern.
Gilmartin was a difficult witness in that he constantly confused dates and came up with various versions of the stories he was telling. However, some of the surprising stories he has outlined in evidence have turned out to be correct.In relation to Ahern, his evidence is that he was told by O'Callaghan of two payments. One was £50,000 given in return for help with a difficulty Gilmartin was experiencing in buying a plot of land at Quarryvale from Dublin Corporation. Little has been produced by way of evidence to support this.
Another Gilmartin story is that at a meeting with bankers in 1992 or 1993 or 1994, O'Callaghan said he had been assured by Ahern, who was minister for finance at the time, that a rival development at Blanchardstown would not be receiving tax-designation status.
After the meeting, according to Gilmartin, O'Callaghan told him he had given Ahern £30,000 in return for blocking designation for the rival project. It is now accepted by Ahern that he met O'Callaghan in the Department of Finance on March 24th, 1994, and that he told O'Callaghan that neither Blanchardstown nor Quarryvale would be receiving designation status.
He cannot remember the meeting but he accepts the evidence O'Callaghan has given.
O'Callaghan's evidence is that after meeting Ahern, he reported back to Gilmartin and others at a meeting in AIB headquarters in Ballsbridge, Dublin.
Some of what Gilmartin said, then, appears to have been corroborated. What though of the allegation which makes the episode of any interest, namely the claim that O'Callaghan told Gilmartin he gave £30,000 to Ahern?
On April 24th, 1994, Ahern lodged £30,000 in cash to AIB on O'Connell Street, Dublin. The money was collected from Ahern in St Luke's by bank official Philip Murphy and the bulk of it lodged to a special savings account. Ahern has told the tribunal that the cash came from the £54,000 in cash he said he accumulated in the period 1987 to December 1993, when he had no personal bank account because of his separation from his wife Miriam.
The details are interesting. Ahern opened his special savings account in December 1993, lodging £22,500. The money came, he has said, from the first of the so-called "dig-outs" he has told the tribunal about. The maximum balance allowed in the special account - an early form of special savings account - was £50,000.
The savings account was brought to its £50,000 limit with the April lodgement. Murphy lodged £27,164.44 to the account to bring it to its limit.
The balance from the £30,000 given to Murphy by Ahern was lodged to Ahern's current account. So why was £30,000 given to Murphy? Why not £27,500, or £28,000?
The tribunal, when it comes to write its report, will have to ask itself if the fact that the figure of £30,000, which cropped up both in Gilmartin's evidence to the tribunal and Ahern's lodgements to his bank accounts, is a coincidence.
In his evidence yesterday and on Monday, Ahern sought to distance his closeness to O'Callaghan and his projects in the early 1990s. Likewise, Ahern sought to argue he knew little about the huge sums O'Callaghan was giving Fianna Fáil during the period, even though he was national treasurer of the party and involved in trying to eliminate its £3 million-plus debt.
During his evidence yesterday Ahern said he'd "busted my gut for the public" during his40 years in politics. "I never got a bribe. I never got money in any form." He has made his resentment of the tribunal, which ironically he was involved in establishing, very clear.