Suggestion of Ahern payment 'not true'

JOHN DEANE, solicitor and business partner to Cork developer Owen O’Callaghan, has said an allegation that Mr O’Callaghan paid former taoiseach Bertie Ahern £50,000 was “simply not true”.

The tribunal heard that Tom Gilmartin said Mr O’Callaghan had told him he paid that money to Mr Ahern. He had said the payment had been made to ensure Mr Gilmartin was able to buy 69 acres of corporation land at Quarryvale in west Dublin in June 1989.

If Mr Gilmartin had not been able to buy the land, the Quarryvale development, now the Liffey Valley shopping centre, would never have gone ahead and Mr O’Callaghan and Mr Deane would not have been paid £2.65 million owed to them by Mr Gilmartin.

Counsel for the tribunal Pat Quinn SC said Mr Gilmartin was told by Mr O’Callaghan “we were certain that Green [Properties] were going to get the site”.

Mr Quinn asked Mr Deane if he was concerned at the time that Green Properties might get the land and he and Mr O’Callaghan would lose out on the money owed to them. “I have no recollection . . . about any discussion of it,” Mr Deane responded.

And he said the suggestion that Mr O’Callaghan gave Mr Ahern money was simply not true.