Gilmartin alleges AIB blackmailed him over project

MAHON TRIBUNAL: Property developer Mr Tom Gilmartin has accused the AIB of blackmailing him into handing over control of his development at Quarryvale in west Dublin.

Mr Gilmartin said the bank, along with rival developer Mr Owen O'Callaghan, held him "to ransom" at the time he was trying to build a massive shopping centre at Quarryvale in the late 1980s. AIB pressurised him to hand over control of his company to Mr O'Callaghan, he claimed yesterday. However, Mr Paul Sreenan SC, for Mr O'Callaghan, asked Mr Gilmartin why he hadn't complained to the Law Society or the gardaí about these matters.

Mr Gilmartin said the Law Society was "a waste of time"; most complaints against solicitors were not "seen to". Likewise, he couldn't see the point of making a complaint to the gardaí.

Mr Sreenan accused the witness of being "paranoid" in his accusations against Mr O'Callaghan. It seemed that everyone was against Mr Gilmartin, including the media, the gardaí, Mr O'Callaghan and AIB.

Counsel said a perfectly valid agreement had been drawn up between the two developers under which Mr Gilmartin bought Mr O'Callaghan's site at Balgaddy, near Quarryvale, for £3.5 million by way of option and phased payment. Counsel said Mr Gilmartin had failed to make the payments on this deal as specified in the agreement. Mr Gilmartin told the tribunal last week the version of this agreement that now exists is not the one he signed in 1989.

However, Mr Sreenan said the document was internally consistent and perfectly valid. Mr Gilmartin had given various versions of the agreement, none of which were corroborated in writing. He had employed four sets of solicitors during this period and none had ever recorded anything to indicate that the document had been falsified. Mr Gilmartin accused counsel of "cherry-picking" documents to support his case.

Mr O'Callaghan had Mr Liam Lawlor and Mr Frank Dunlop "on his payroll" to thwart him, the witness claimed, "but the best trick of the lot was that he was stealing my money to do it". Mr O'Callaghan was paying a "cartel" of councillors to make sure his Quarryvale project didn't go ahead.

"I was being blackmailed. They were holding me to ransom every time zoning came up." Mr Gilmartin said Mr O'Callaghan had not put "a single penny" into the deal. It was he, Mr Gilmartin, who introduced the Duke of Westminster and his company to Quarryvale. Mr O'Callaghan, together with the Duke's company, later developed the site as the Liffey Valley Centre.