Honourable Gilmartin deserves apology

Since the publication of the Mahon Tribunal report, there has been much breast beating about corruption. Politicians have lined up to decry how planning was debased by corrupt councillors. There have been promises that change is on the way. Over three days the report was debated in the Dáil. Yet practically nobody has stated that which screams out from the report: Tom Gilmartin was done a grievous wrong by elected politicians, and at least one public official, who represented themselves as agents of the State. And when the gardaí were called in to investigate what had befallen him, they willfully failed in their duty to protect all citizens.

Gilmartin is an unlikely victim. His son, Thomas, has been in the media over the last week portraying the old man as somebody who had arrived back in this country in the mid-1980s intent on stemming the tide of immigration to which he himself had been subjected. Gilmartin Jr has also claimed that his father was concerned with the interests of local people when he attempted to develop the Quarryvale site in west Dublin. The picture painted is one of an altruistic businessman more concerned with the “common good” than making money.