O’Callaghan on attack at tribunal

A Cork property developer has branded as a “complete fiction” the claim that he once handed IR£150,000 to the former Taoiseach Albert Reynolds.

Owen O’Callaghan told the Mahon Tribunal that the suggestion was horrendous and “one of the greatest lies” spun by his former business partner Tom Gilmartin in planning probe evidence.

Mr O’Callaghan went on record at the tribunal to blame journalist Frank Connolly for the claims made by Mr Gilmartin.

He said: “It is as far from the truth as you could possibly be.

“It is one of the greatest lies ever told. It is horrendous and so far from the truth.”

During months of evidence last year, Mr Gilmartin also alleged Mr O’Callaghan had made payments to a number of senior politicians, including a total of at least IR£80,000 to Bertie Ahern, who completed his own period in the Mahon witness box this week.

Mr O’Callaghan spelled out to the marathon investigation’s three judges: “I never paid a penny in my life to Albert Reynolds or to Bertie Ahern.”

Mr O’Callaghan maintained that most of Mr Gilmartin’s “stories” came from what he read in the papers. He insisted that he had never told Mr Gilmartin that he had Albert Reynolds on his “payroll”.

“This man has concocted everything and made it up and thrown out these figures.

“I do not think he can even add up.”

He said it was possible that Frank Connolly had given the stories to Tom Gilmartin. Pressed about Mr Connolly’s likely source, Mr O’Callaghan replied: “I would love to know.”

He agreed that he might have told Mr Gilmartin about a request he had received from former cabinet minister and European Commissioner Ray MacSharry to make a donation to the Fianna Fáil party, and that his one-time property developing partner could have misinterpreted what he had heard.

“It is possible he turned that around to the story he is telling. It is possible that he gave it to his friend Connolly and he put the spin on it that has been going around for the past seven, eight or nine years.

“I think the man who manipulated Gilmartin to do this is none other than Connolly. That is my belief and it is very close to being factual as well.”

The alleged payment to Mr Reynolds was claimed by Mr Gilmartin to have been made it the bedroom of a house in Cork, where a Fianna Fáil fund-raising dinner was being held in March 1994.

Mr Reynolds, a friend of Mr O’Callaghan, is not expected to give evidence to the tribunal for medical reasons.

Mr O’Callaghan also recalled for the tribunal the concern he felt when Mr MacSharry joined the board of the Green Property Company.

He feared the appointment as a director of such a high-ranking politician might influence efforts being made by the company in the mid-1990s to secure special tax designation for their planning project in Blanchardstown — possibly at the expense of his own development scheme in nearby Quarryvale.

Mr O’Callaghan successfully sought a meeting with then Minister for Finance Mr Ahern to outline his misgivings. He pressed Mr Ahern for a commitment that the tax move would either be granted to both projects or to neither.

The future Taoiseach was able to assure the Cork businessman that there were no plans to grant tax designations to anyone.

Article courtesy of the Evening Echo newspaper.