Bertie changes his story

TAOISEACH Bertie Ahern made a dramatic concession yesterday by accepting he could have met Tom Gilmartin with other senior Fianna Fáil ministers in the Dail in February 1989.

During marathon questioning, lasting almost five hours and involving bruising exchanges, Mr Ahern accepted he could have had a “chit-chat” encounter with Mr Gilmartin.

But Mr Ahern, in robust and occasionally impatient replies, contended he had not shifted his position.

His statement to the Tribunal had said he had no recollection of senior ministers meeting Mr Gilmartin in the Dail in February 1989.

But Mr Ahern was left in a difficult position in the light of Senator Mary O’Rourke’s evidence last Monday. She gave an unchallenged account of being introduced to Mr Gilmartin in Leinster House in the Spring of 1989. She said Mr Ahern was one of the ministers present.

Under questioning by Tribunal lawyer, John Gallagher and later by Mr Gilmartin’s counsel Hugh O’Neill, Mr Ahern accepted that an ‘encounter’ could have taken place but drew a distinction between a meeting and a casual gathering of Ministers briefly meeting a visitor.

Describing such encounters as “gatherings for the purpose of having chit-chat” he said they were entirely different from a Government meeting in his understanding of the term. He said that such gatherings took place “20 times before breakfast” and said there was “not a hope” he would have remembered it.

In another impatient response later, he said: “The Government has more to be doing than spending their time remembering chit-chat meetings.”

The Taoiseach’s evidence was heard during a dramatic afternoon at Dublin Castle. The Tribunal was packed to capacity with large numbers being turned away for safety The Taoiseach occasionally showed tetchiness at the line and assertiveness of Mr O’Neill’s apporach. At the outset, the tone was set when Mr Ahern was asked to deny that he and his legal team had set out to do a “hatchet job” on Mr Gilmartin.

Mr O’Neill then pressed Mr Ahern to accept that Mr Gilmartin was neither “shifty” nor “dishonest”, as he had been portrayed at one juncture by the Taoiseach’s counsel, Conor Maguire. Mr Ahern said he himself had never described Mr Gilmartin in those terms.

Mr Ahern maintained that he had no recollection of Mr Gilmartin phoning him to say he gave a £50,000 cheque to Padraig Flynn, and denied that he had ever canvassed the developer for donation to Fianna Fail. It was his invariable practice never to ask for donations either for himself or for Fianna Fail, he said.

He also emphatically rejected a suggestion put to him by Mr O’Neill that Mr Gilmartin had told him in a telephone conversation in May 1989 that Liam Lawlor and George Redmond were demanding money off him.

Mr O’Neill put it to Mr Ahern that it was “entirely implausible” Mr Gilmartin would not have told the Taoiseach, given that Mr Gilmartin was “telling his woes to everyone”.

The Taoiseach replied that though he could not recollect the phone call, he was sure that the only difficulty that Mr Gilmartin had brought up related to a tender he had submitted to purchase land.

As he left the Tribunal, Mr Ahern looked apprehensive as he was surrounded by a large media scrum. He was escorted down the steps by several gardaí.

He told reporters he had not found the questioning difficult.

“No, I’d have to say I’ve waited since January 1999 to get this opportunity,” he said.

“And for five hours twenty minutes, that’s the way it should be.

Needless to say I enjoyed my turn, it’s a long time to wait to do that,” he added.