O'Callaghan says Ahern did not discuss meeting

US MEETING:COUNSEL FOR the tribunal has described as "bizarre" claims that former taoiseach Bertie Ahern did not discuss with Cork developer Owen O'Callaghan a meeting he had with Mr O'Callaghan's US bankers in Los Angeles in 1994.

Mr O'Callaghan said Mr Ahern, then minister for finance, never mentioned the matter at a private meeting they had in his office in March 1994, two weeks after the Los Angeles meeting.

The planning tribunal is currently questioning Mr O'Callaghan as part of the Quarryvale II module, an investigation into allegations of corruption surrounding the rezoning of land on which the Liffey Valley shopping centre is built.

In the 1990s, Mr O'Callaghan was also involved in a proposal to develop a £60 million national stadium at Neilstown, west Dublin, on land originally zoned for retail development but that had its zoning removed when Quarryvale, now Liffey Valley, was zoned retail.

The tribunal had heard that US investment bankers Chilton & O'Connor were interested in backing the project and were in negotiations with Mr O'Callaghan.

Counsel for the tribunal Patricia Dillon SC said Mr Ahern had told the Dáil, in 1994, that he had visited the bankers on a trip to Los Angeles in March that year. She also read a letter from Chilton & O'Connor to Mr O'Callaghan's lobbyist Frank Dunlop requesting information in preparation for that meeting.

Mr O'Callaghan said he was aware of the letter and had supplied the information, but because he heard no more about it, he assumed it never happened.

He confirmed that he met Mr Ahern at the Department of Finance on March 24th. He did discuss his stadium plans briefly with Mr Ahern, but Mr Ahern never mentioned he had met anyone from Chilton & O'Connor and Mr O'Callaghan did not ask him about it.

"Would you agree with me, Mr O'Callaghan, that if Mr Ahern met with Chilton & O'Connor, your bankers, and if the national stadium, your project, was discussed between your bankers and the minister for finance at that time and you were kept out of the loop, that's a bizarre set of circumstances?" Ms Dillon asked.

"That's why I'm saying . . . I think what actually happened is the stadium was not discussed at that meeting," he said.

Ms Dillon produced a fax from the late Liam Lawlor to his son Niall, who worked at Chilton & O'Connor, which said the stadium was on the agenda. Mr O'Callaghan agreed that if it had been discussed, he would have expected Mr Ahern to mention it at their meeting of March 24th.

"Why didn't you raise the topic with him?" Ms Dillon asked. Mr O'Callaghan said he assumed it did not take place and it was not for him to raise the issue.

He said the primary purpose for the meeting was to discuss whether or not the shopping developments at Blanchardstown or Quarryvale would receive tax designation status, which would have saved the developments millions of pounds. Mr Ahern told him neither area would be eligible.

Tom Gilmartin, Luton-based developer and Mr O'Callaghan's partner in the Quarryvale project, had said Mr O'Callaghan told him at a bank meeting in March 1994 he "had it from the horse's mouth" that Blanchardstown would not get tax designation, after he made a phone call to Mr Ahern. He had said Mr O'Callaghan told him he paid Mr Ahern £30,000 to ensure the status was not granted.

Mr O'Callaghan had denied the allegation. He said yesterday Mr Gilmartin had turned the incident into "one of his stories" after he outlined to the bank that he was aware neither Blanchardstown nor Quarryvale would get tax designation status.

Mr O'Callaghan will continue his evidence in mid-September.