Former Fianna Fáil press secretary Frank Dunlop was paid £300,000 to "sing the right song to the tribunal", it was claimed at the Mahon tribunal yesterday. Fiona Gartlandreports.
Giving evidence Tom Gilmartin said an anonymous caller told him that rival developer Owen O'Callaghan had made the payment. The caller had said Mr O'Callaghan was "rattled" by the tribunal's investigations into dealings he had with Mr Dunlop and by stories in the press, and had called an urgent meeting in west Dublin with Mr Dunlop some time in 1998 or 1999.
"£300,000 was paid to Mr Dunlop to buy his silence or for him to sing the right song to the tribunal," Mr Gilmartin said he was told.
He said Mr Dunlop was paid to keep quiet by Mr O'Callaghan and the bank.
He added that he did not know whether or not the statement was true, but pointed out that on cross-examination at the tribunal Mr Dunlop could not account for a £300,000 payment he got at that time.
Mr Gilmartin outlined how he received a large number of phone calls from various people, including journalists, when some details of the tribunal's investigations were leaked to the press in 1998, but he denied being the source of the leaks.
However, he admitted faxing some of his own documents to the press to counteract publicity about him, which was detracting from his credibility.
"I decided I'd do something about it, so I faxed a journalist some ammunition," he said.
He said he also received five or six "strange" phone calls from the late Liam Lawlor.
Mr Lawlor had been paid for consultancy work on a development Mr Gilmartin was involved with in the late 1980s, at Bachelor's Walk in Dublin. Mr Gilmartin claimed Mr Lawlor was at the centre of problems he had with that development, and was "a man truly without principle".
"He was getting a little bit demented," Mr Gilmartin said.
He said he thought it was a sick joke when he heard later that Mr Lawlor had been sent to a conference in Australia on "ethics in politics".
He told tribunal counsel, Pat Quinn SC, about an incident relayed to him by Mr O'Callaghan, involving Mr Dunlop and planning issues at Golden Island, Athlone.
He said Mr Dunlop was in Athlone with Mr O'Callaghan, architect Ambrose Kelly and the owner of the Golden Island site, Tom Diskin. He said they were persuading councillors who were objecting to it, to change their minds. They also wanted Mr Dunlop to speak to Fianna Fáil deputy Mary O'Rourke, who was objecting to the development.
"Dunlop wouldn't go because he was afraid of her, so Tom Diskin himself volunteered to go," he said.
"Tom Diskin had an argument with Mary O'Rourke in the house and she threatened to call the guards on him . . . her husband asked Tom Diskin to leave."