Gilmartin says Flynn requested payments for FF

Property developer Tom Gilmartin has told the Mahon Tribunal that former Government minister Padraig Flynn asked him and a business partner to make substantial donations to Fianna Fáil during a meeting in 1989.

Mr Gilmartin told the tribunal that the then Environment Minister told him the donations would help curb the activities of people seeking to frustrate his planned Quarryvale development in west Dublin.

The property developer also said that he had got the date of this meeting wrong in his original statement to the inquiry.

He said he now believed it took place in April 1989, rather than February 1989, as he initially stated.

Mr Gilmartin told the tribunal that he was joined at the meeting by a business colleague from Arlington Properties, the company behind the planned Quarryvale development.

He said he told Mr Flynn that former assistant Dublin city and county manager George Redmond and others were playing games with him and trying to block his purchase of lands for the Quarryvale scheme.

He said Mr Flynn then told him that Fianna Fáil was in debt to the tune of IR£3m (€3.8m) and a substantial donation to the party would help curb the activities of Redmond and others.

Mr Gilmartin said he felt angered that he was effectively being asked to pay for access to a level playing field.