The property developer Mr Tom Gilmartin has told the Mahon tribunal that the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, was among a number of Fianna Fáil ministers present at a meeting with him in Leinster House in February 1989. Mr Ahern maintains he has no recollection of the meeting. Paul Cullen reports.
Mr Gilmartin yesterday also accused the Fianna Fáil Minister, Mr Seamus Brennan, and the former minister, Mr Padraig Flynn, of lying in their claims to the tribunal that they did not attend any such meeting. He described a similar denial by a former minister, Mr Ray Burke, as "totally inaccurate".
Mr Gilmartin told the tribunal yesterday that Mr Ahern was present at the meeting in the Fianna Fáil offices in February 1989 and greeted the developer by saying "Hello, Tom" when he entered.
He said he had already had three meetings with Mr Ahern by this time and was on first-name terms with the then minister for labour.
In written statements in advance of his expected appearance at the hearings in coming weeks, Mr Ahern has told the tribunal that he has no recollection of the meeting alleged by Mr Gilmartin. It was his "firm belief" that he did not attend such a meeting. There is no record of the meeting in his diary.
Mr Ahern has also told the tribunal in his statement that in all the time since he joined the cabinet in 1982 he had never witnessed a private developer attend a cabinet meeting to discuss a commercial project.
However, in its request for information from the Taoiseach, the tribunal made it clear that it did not believe the claimed meeting was an official cabinet meeting.
Yesterday Mr Gilmartin described in vivid terms how an unidentified man approached him outside the alleged meeting with Mr Charles Haughey and seven of his ministers to demand that he deposit £5 million in an Isle of Man bank account. The man handed him a small piece of paper with an account number written on it.
Mr Gilmartin refused, saying: "You people make the so-and-so Mafia look like monks."
According to Mr Gilmartin, the man replied: "You could end up in the so-and-so Liffey for that remark." Mr Gilmartin said he told the man to "so-and-so off".
He claimed that, as he left, a Fianna Fáil councillor, the late Sean Walsh, told him that Mr Liam Lawlor had "me set up". He was being "taken to the cleaners" and should "watch his back," Mr Walsh told him, according to Mr Gilmartin.
Mr Gilmartin, who had returned from England with plans to develop two large shopping centres in Dublin, claims that Mr Lawlor set up the meeting with the ministers. During this meeting Mr Haughey asked if Mr Lawlor was "looking after" him.
Six of the ministers who allegedly attended the meeting either deny it took place or cannot recollect such a meeting. Mrs Mary O'Rourke has told the tribunal she briefly attended a gathering of ministers broadly of the type described by the developer.
Mr Gilmartin told the tribunal that after the meeting he didn't know who to trust and who not to trust. "I came to the conclusion that the place was totally corrupt and I had good reason for it."
In his evidence Mr Gilmartin gave a detailed description of the route he says he took to get to the meeting in the Fianna Fáil rooms. These are located on the upper floors of Leinster House in an area restricted to most visitors.
"I know the meeting took place," he said. "I know I was there, and if you bring me a graphic designer, I will paint the room for you. And I'll paint the corridor and the lift."
Earlier he claimed that a Fianna Fáil councillor asked him for £100,000 in return for his support for the development of a shopping centre at Quarryvale in west Dublin. Mr Gilmartin said Cllr Finbarr Hanrahan sought the money at a meeting in December 1988.
He said that, as he left the meeting in Buswells Hotel, a rival property developer, Mr Owen O'Callaghan, asked: "Did he tap you?"
Asked about how he felt after receiving this demand, he said: "I thought, if this is an example of how this country is run, God help the poor devils walking the streets in Luton looking for a job."