Gilmartin claims Dublin land was used as ransom

Mahon tribunal:Land at Neilstown in Dublin was used by Owen O'Callaghan for its "ransom value" against developer Tom Gilmartin, Mr Gilmartin told the tribunal.

Mr Gilmartin was continuing his responses to his cross-examination by Paul Sreenan SC, for Mr O'Callaghan, in the tribunal's public inquiry into alleged planning corruption linked to the Quarryvale, now Liffey Valley, development.

Mr Sreenan questioned Mr Gilmartin's business acumen and said he successfully tendered to buy land for £5 million from Dublin Corporation when he did not have the money to close the deal.

"That was dishonest," Mr Sreenan said.

Mr Gilmartin said he would have raised a bank loan. "I had a reasonable certainty we'd get the money," he said. He had friends who would have put up the money if he had needed it, he said.

Mr Gilmartin was assembling a land bank for the Quarryvale development but the land would have to be rezoned. The council development plan designated a site in Neilstown as a town centre. This land was owned by Mr O'Callaghan and the Quarryvale land was unlikely to be rezoned as long as the Neilstown zoning still existed.

Mr Gilmartin said he made a mistake in not buying the Neilstown land from Mr O'Callaghan. "What I didn't understand was the ransom value of it."

He said his site in Quarryvale was "the best site in Ireland". The Neilstown site "would never have been built on . . . As far as I know there is nothing built on the Neilstown site, 20 years on."

Mr Sreenan said an internal AIB memo showed that by September 1990 he was in default on a number of the deals that formed part of the assembly of the land bank.

Mr Sreenan said Mr Gilmartin had put down deposits on the land when he had a "tip off" the land would be given special tax designation. Mr Gilmartin said he had absolute assurance from several ministers that the land would be given tax designation.

However he had not figured out that the same people who had made the promises would have to be paid first.

"When they discovered that I was not a ball player, then suddenly the whole thing changed and enter your client."

Mr Gilmartin resumes his evidence on Tuesday.