Luton-based developer Tom Gilmartin today told the Mahon Tribunal he was "100 per cent certain" he had previously told the tribunal about a request for half a million pounds from Joe Burke the former Dublin city councillor and associate of Taoiseach Bertie Ahern.
Senior counsel for the tribunal Pat Quinn recommenced his examination of Mr Gilmartin today. However, before he could begin questioning, Mr Gilmartin said he wanted to return to the matters discussed yesterday, when he was pressed on why the alleged request by Mr Burke was not included in his original statement to the tribunal.
Mr Gilmartin said he was "100 per cent certain" he had told the tribunal at an interview in 1998 about the meeting with Mr Burke. He said there would have been "no point" in recounting a story about how Mr Burke drove him to the airport unless he had told the story about the alleged request for payment at a meeting the same day.
However, Mr Gilmartin repeated today that the alleged demand was not made directly, but was "talked around, which meant the same thing to me".
Yesterday, Mr Gilmartin said that, in his recollection, after a meeting with Mr Burke in September 1989, Mr Burke drove him to the airport but stopped at two pubs en route in a bid to find Mr Ahern so that Mr Gilmartin could meet him.
Today, Mr Gilmartin said there was "evidence" that he had told the tribunal about the meeting with Mr Burke.
"I was seriously confused yesterday and I did not want to challenge you," he told Mr Quinn under questioning.
Mr Quinn put it to Mr Gilmartin yesterday that it was a "most startling" allegation that he would not have forgotten to mention in his 1999 statement to the tribunal.
Mr Gilmartin today said he had checked his records last night and the meeting he had with Mr Burke took place in 1990, a year after three other meetings he had with the councillor.
He told the tribunal yesterday he never saw Mr Burke again after that final meeting, which ended with bitter words after Mr Burke dropped him to the airport.
He is currently being examined on the complex details of an £8 million contract with Cork-based developer Owen O'Callaghan to develop the site in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
Mr Gilmartin said there was "no way" he could proceed with developing Quarryvale once the possibility of Neilstown being developed was being held out. However, Mr Gilmartin insisted the government was keen to see the development of the Quarryvale site.
Mr Gilmartin is giving evidence in the second Quarryvale module of the Mahon tribunal, which is investigating issues surrounding the development of lands in west Dublin which subsequently became the Liffey Valley shopping centre.
Mr Gilmartin said he was "rather surprised" that AIB bank documents in relation to his application for funding to proceed with the development should suggest that he was in a position to give a guarantee that the Quarryvale site would receive special tax designation.
He said this was an issue over which he had "no control whatsoever" and that it was a matter for the government.
"I find it extraordinary that the bank could make an offer for a loan on a condition which they would have known I had no control over," he said.
Mr Gilmartin has already told the tribunal he had meetings with a number of government ministers, including then Minister for Labour Bertie Ahern and Minister for the Environment Padraig Flynn.
He also said yesterday he did not believe achieving special tax status for the Quarryvale site was critical as it was one of the best sites in Ireland for a developer.
Mr Gilmartin's evidence is expected to last up to three weeks.
The original opening statement of the tribunal concerning Quarryvale II contained allegations from Mr Gilmartin that Mr Ahern had been paid £80,000 in connection with the site.
Mr Gilmartin said Mr O'Callaghan, his business partner at the time, had claimed he paid the money to Mr Ahern in two amounts of £30,000 and £50,000, and Mr Ahern was "instrumental" in blocking tax designation for
a rival shopping devlopment in
Blanchardstown.
The Taoiseach and Mr O'Callaghan have denied any suggestion of wrongdoing.