BUSINESSMAN Tom Gilmartin assured senior AIB bankers he had high-level Fianna Fáil government contacts when he successfully applied for a IR£8.5 million short-term loan to get his ambitious west Dublin Quarryvale project under way, the tribunal heard yesterday.

AIB wanted Cork-based businessman Owen O’Callaghan on board the Quarryvale project in west Dublin in 1992 to protect its investment, it was claimed at the Mahon Tribunal yesterday.