Gilmartin denies memory of meeting 'flawed'

Property developer Tom Gilmartin has rejected suggestions his memory of a 1989 meeting with government ministers is flawed.

Mr Gilmartin told the Mahon Tribunal he informed the Tánaiste Mary Harney about a controversial meeting he held with several senior government ministers in 1989.

Mr Gilmartin said this morning that he made Mary Harney aware of the meeting during a house-warming party in the Dalkey area of Dublin. He said he had mistakenly omitted this from his direct evidence over the past two weeks.

Under questioning today from Conor Maguire, the Taoiseach’s senior counsel, Mr Gilmartin rejected suggestions that his memory of the 1989 meeting was flawed.

Mr Maguire claimed the Taoiseach had documentary evidence to prove that he could not possibly have attended the meeting on the date the property developer said it took place.

However, Mr Gilmartin insisted that Bertie Ahern was present, saying: “I don’t tell lies.”

He also asked Mr Maguire if he was suggesting that former minister Mary O’Rourke was lying and perjuring herself when she admitted to temporarily attending the meeting.

Mr Gilmartin has told the tribunal that several government ministers, including Mr Ahern, Ray Burke, Padraig Flynn, Seamus Brennan and Charles Haughey, were present at the meeting in Leinster House in February or April 1989.

However, all these ministers are now denying that the meeting to discuss Mr Gilmartin’s planned Quarryvale development ever took place.

Mr Gilmartin has claimed that he was asked to deposit £5m in an offshore bank account for Fianna Fáil after the controversial meeting.