Mr Tom Gilmartin today claimed that fellow property developer Mr Owen O'Callaghan was a "crook" who paid Dublin county councillors to obstruct his planning application for a shopping centre development in west Dublin.
In his evidence to the Mahon tribunal today, Mr Gilmartin repeatedly alleged that Mr O'Callaghan had held him "to ransom" over his attempts to develop the lands at Quarryvale in the late 1980s.
He claimed Mr O'Callaghan "was paying a load of councillors" through former lobbyist Mr Frank Dunlop "to make certain that it (Quarryvale) never got on the agenda".
Mr O'Callaghan went on to acquire a 70 per cent stake in the development which was to become the Liffey Valley shopping centre. Mr Gilmartin was later ousted from the board of the company set up to build the shopping complex.
But counsel for Mr O'Callaghan, Mr Paul Sreenan, accused Mr Gilmartin of making accusations against his client which he could not back up and of "juggling the facts".
To which Mr Gilmartin replied: "Absolutely not true and I'll prove it."
Earlier, Mr Sreenan accused Mr Gilmartin of being deliberately "lurid and sensationalist" in claiming Mr O'Callaghan had boasted about influencing the planning of the Jack Lynch tunnel in Cork
In his previous evidence to the tribunal, Mr Gilmartin claimed Mr O'Callaghan had told him the tunnel line had been altered to suit his property interests.
But Mr Sreenan today put it to Mr Gimartin that the accusation was a product of his own imagination.
Mr Gilmartin denied this, saying for all he knew Mr O'Callaghan could have been talking "a load of baloney" just to impress him but he had said it.
