O'Callaghan attacks Gilmartin and tribunal

Cork developer Owen O'Callaghan has launched a hard-hitting attack on his former business colleague, Tom Gilmartin, and the planning tribunal.

Mr O'Callaghan, who has been the subject of a string of allegations by Mr Gilmartin at the tribunal, described his accuser as a bitter, failed businessman who was "far from being the victim" he portrayed himself to be in their dealings on Quarryvale.

In a statement released yesterday, he also accused the tribunal of providing the "ideal vehicle" for Mr Gilmartin's mission, which was to inflict as much damage on him as possible.

"It is deeply disturbing to me that in a modern civilised democracy, a forum can exist where an individual can peddle such monstrous and clearly obvious lies with impunity and immunity. No efforts are, or have been, made to restrain or curtail these lies in circumstances where, on any objective analysis, they simply don't stack up, and those many people against whom the lying crusade is directed suffer enormous damage."

Mr O'Callaghan said his statement was prompted by "the butchery of reputations", including his own, at the tribunal. He repeated earlier denials that he ever paid a politician to vote for a rezoning: "I have never authorised anybody to engage in such a payment, or a bribe, on my behalf." He acknowledged, however, that he had made "legitimate" political contributions to politicians and to the Fianna Fáil party, and that he paid lobbyist Frank Dunlop and his companies £1.62 million in "professional fees" over a 10-year period.

"It is utterly incorrect for the tribunal to state, as they are now doing, that part of these monies were paid by me to a company controlled by Frank Dunlop so that he and I could create an 'untraceable slush fund' in order to bribe councillors."

Mr O'Callaghan said Mr Gilmartin was a fantasist who was engaged in a vicious attempt to discredit all those connected with Quarryvale and who, in his "pique and bile", had extended his list of targets to include the Taoiseach and a former taoiseach, who were wholly unconnected with the project.

"Inept and chaotic, Mr Gilmartin did not lose his business as a result of some Machiavellian conspiracy between O'Callaghan Properties and AIB, but through his own incompetence."

He accused the tribunal of striking a "sordid" deal to grant Mr Gilmartin immunity from prosecution and providing a suitable forum for the latter's "wrecking crusade".

"I have no immunity from prosecution. I have no 'deal' on costs. I don't have the luxury of a risk-free, state-sponsored forum where I can make up all sorts of fanciful lies about those with whom my commercial ventures haven't worked out."

Taoiseach Bertie Ahern last night said Mr Gilmartin felt free to make groundless allegations against him because the tribunal had offered him immunity. "I feel aggrieved that an individual can come out and say every half wit of a statement about you, but, as I said, there is no good feeling aggrieved.

"I can do nothing about it. I just have to take it, and others believe him, unfortunately. That's a bigger problem," he told journalists in Bray, Co Wicklow.

"I have suffered 19 allegations from Tom Gilmartin. Yesterday, he suffered another loss of memory. He said he gave me another £20,000. He seems to be able to do that every day." "I am supposed to have handed vast swathes of

cash to our Taoiseach and a former taoiseach. I am supposed to have driven around Dublin with a shotgun in the boot of my car. I am supposed, with my solicitor, to have fraudulently altered the terms of my agreement with Tom Gilmartin after it was signed. I am supposed to have encouraged councillors to extort money from Tom Gilmartin. None of this ever happened."