Mahon tribunal:Tom Gilmartin's evidence was a series of "headline-grabbing allegations" and a "malevolent cocktail of lies", the Mahon tribunal was told yesterday.
The Luton-based developer was compared to Walter Mitty and told his allegations had gradually become "more bizarre and ludicrous". The 72-year-old was on the stand following 16 days of direct evidence to the planning tribunal's Quarryvale II module in Dublin Castle.
Paul Sreenan SC, for property developer Owen O'Callaghan and for his solicitor, John Deane, said Mr Gilmartin's evidence had become more dramatic as the days passed. "Out of your own mouth, we had Owen O'Callaghan falling out of broom cupboards, carrying a shotgun in the boot of his car, going into the bedroom of the taoiseach at 3 o'clock in the morning to give him £150,000 in cash," Mr Sreenan said.
"Do you regard those as dramatic?"
"Things did get a little more dramatic as the time went on," Mr Gilmartin conceded.
Mr Sreenan accused Mr Gilmartin of playing to the gallery and keeping himself in the public eye by making more and more fantastic allegations.
"You are very funny, Mr Sreenan," Mr Gilmartin said.
"There is nothing funny about it from Mr O'Callaghan's and Mr Deane's point of view, I assure you," Mr Sreenan responded.
He asked if Mr Gilmartin was aware of the financial suffering of Mr O'Callaghan and others because of his allegations.
"They made huge financial gain out of being able to use their political clout," he replied. "I won't spend the night crying over Mr O'Callaghan's costs, I can assure you."
Mr Sreenan queried whether Mr Gilmartin's family might have discouraged him from participating in the tribunal because they understood his nature better than anyone, and thought he was a Walter Mitty character.
Mr Gilmartin said that phrase had come from Liam Lawlor and Frank Dunlop, and remarked that Mr Sreenan was leaving out one or two terms; he had also been called a Walt Disney character and Myles na gCopaleen.
Mr Sreenan referred to an AIB file note from 1994 in which Mr Gilmartin's representative at the time, Paul Sheeran, is reported as having remarked that Mr Gilmartin was paranoid.
"You best ask him for his opinion on that . . . he has since learned that I was very, very rational," Mr Gilmartin said.
Mr Sreenan said Mr Gilmartin was reckless with the truth and reckless with other people's reputations. "You have dished up . . . a malevolent cocktail of lies and it has more than a fair share of bitterness and jealousy in it," he said.
"Most of what this tribunal uncovered has been all outrageous lies . . . isn't that right?" Mr Gilmartin responded.
Judge Alan Mahon interjected that Mr Gilmartin was not to ask Mr Sreenan questions.
Mr Gilmartin was asked about his attitude when he first met representatives from the then Flood tribunal in England, in February, 1998. "Did you think this was the chit-chat tribunal?" Mr Sreenan asked.
"At the time I didn't know what to think," Mr Gilmartin replied.
He reiterated that when he was introduced to the then tribunal chairman, Justice Feargus Flood, there was no conversation; Justice Flood simply handed him his terms of reference and left the room. After being pressed on the finer details of his contacts with his solicitor in 1998, Noel Smyth, Mr Gilmartin remarked: "God, Mr Sreenan, you are splitting hairs, aren't you".
