O’Callaghan faked document, claims Gilmartin

PROPERTY developer Tom Gilmartin has accused business rival Owen O’Callaghan of faking a document supplied to the Mahon Tribunal.

Mr Gilmartin told the tribunal that a document purporting to be a land purchase contract between himself and Mr O'Callaghan and bearing a signature in Mr Gilmartin's name was not the contract he signed. Mr Gilmartin could not account for the whereabouts of the correct version of the contract, but he insisted under cross-examination by senior counsel Paul Sreenan that the one before the tribunal was fake.

"That's a falsified agreement by your crook of a client," he said. The contract related to an agreement by Mr O'Callaghan in late 1988 to sell his interest in a site at Neilstown in Dublin to Mr Gilmartin. The Neilstown site had the valuable "town centre development" zoning which Mr Gilmartin needed for his own site at Quarryvale.