Gilmartin honourable and truthful, say witnesses

DEVELOPER Tom Gilmartin — who alleges falling foul of political corruption when he tried to set up a west Dublin project in the early 1990s — was an honourable and truthful man, the Mahon Planning Tribunal heard yesterday.

Retired senior banker, Paul Sheeran, said he had known Mr Gilmartin, who was then based in Luton, London, since 1972/73. He was respected in British business circles as a property developer and previously in engineering.

Mr Gilmartin claims his former business partner, Cork property developer, Owen O’Callaghan, bragged about having senior politicians “in his pocket” and making corrupt payments to Taoiseach Bertie Ahern and former taoiseach Albert Reynolds.

Former manager at the Bank of Ireland Blanchardstown branch, Mr Sheeran told how Mr Gilmartin — who was declared bankrupt in Britain in 1992 — later appointed him to represent him at board meetings of the Barkhill property company, of which he had a 40% share.

Mr Sheeran said at the time, Mr Gilmartin was almost destitute and could not afford to travel to Dublin.

Mr Gilmartin alleges fraud, collusion and corruption against Mr O’Callaghan and Allied Irish Banks — his former shareholders in the Quarryvale project now under the tribunal spotlight — in their dealings with Barkhill.

He claims that Mr O’Callaghan and the bank knew that Frank Dunlop — of whom, Mr Sheeran said Mr Gilmartin had a poor opinion — was using his (Dunlop’s) Shefran company to hide payments.

Mr Sheeran stressed he had no direct knowledge of any of Mr Gilmartin’s allegations and only knew of them because Mr Gilmartin told him.

In a note dated October 5, 1994, AIB banker, David McGrath, said Mr Gilmartin “is quite incoherent at the moment and certainly has a view that everybody is against him. It would appear that he is paranoid in this connection”.

When tribunal lawyer, Pat Quinn SC, asked him if he regarded Mr Gilmartin as “a Walter Mitty-type character or a loose cannon”, Mr Sheeran said: “Not at all.”

He said while he had once described Mr Gilmartin as incoherent, he was never paranoid: “Mr Gilmartin… had a view that AIB and Mr O’Callaghan were combining against him and he was very unhappy about the way the funds of Barkhill were used to go through Shefran. He had a variety of concerns.”

The former banker said: “I would have taken the bank’s side most of the time and I found it very difficult to believe some of the allegations that he was making — and would frequently challenge him.”

His abiding memory of one Barkhill board meeting was of Mr Gilmartin launching into a vitriolic attack on Mr O’Callaghan and AIB, accusing them of fraud, corruption and collusion.

“I dissociated myself from these remarks as I could not authenticate them.”

He added he was trying to put AIB at their ease and trying to allay the bank’s fears he was not there to cause trouble.

Replying to Alan Keating, lawyer for Mr O’Callaghan, Mr Sheeran agreed he had no direct knowledge of Mr Gilmartin’s allegations. He said Mr Gilmartin was never incoherent about his financial affairs, but was very concerned about what he perceived was happening.

Solicitor Noel Smyth, who had acted for Mr Gilmartin in the mid-1990s, described his former client as a very fine man who felt betrayed by the “system” in Ireland because of his treatment by AIB, having been a successful businessman in Britain.

“He had, in my opinion, been badly dealt by the various entities.”