AIB BANKER DESCRIBES BARKHILL TAKEOVER

Kay tells of O’Callaghan’s buy-out of Gilmartin’s share of Quarryvale
	Eddie Kay at the Tribunal

This week the Tribunal cross-examined former AIB banker, Edmund Kay, about the Quarryvale land deal and its major players.

AIB held a 20% interest in the project, which would eventually become the Liffey Valley Centre in West Dublin. A 40% share was held by each of two rival developers, Tom Gilmartin and Owen O’Callaghan.

The Tribunal heard that developer, Tom Gilmartin had contributed 4.5 million pounds, while Owen O’Callaghan had put up 1 million pound stake. Mr. Kay told Patricia Dillon SC that Gilmartin, originally from Mayo, was bitter about O’Callaghan’s 40% stake in the project, which he considered disproportionate to his financial contribution: “Mr. Gilmartin believed that O’Callaghan had muscled in on the deal at no net cost to himself.”

At the time Gilmartin was being audited in the UK by the Inland Revenue Service: “He had serious financial problems in England,” Kay told Dillon SC; “There was no way he could develop the [Quarryvale] project on his own”. AIB proposed that Gilmartin’s rival in the deal, Owen O’Callaghan, step in and “undertake the role of securing re-zoning.”

Mr. Gilmartin, was also distrustful of Frank Dunlop, the lobbyist hired by Mr. O’Callaghan to assist in getting local Councillors’ votes to rezone the Quarryvale project. Mr. Dunlop facilitated ‘donations’ to a number of political representatives from Fianna Fail, Labour, Fine Gael, the Green Party and Sinn Fein through his company Shefran Ltd.

Mr. Dunlop received these monies from O’Callaghan’s company Riga Ltd., which was in turn loaned money from AIB and Gilmartin’s company Barkhill Ltd.

Mr. Kay told the Tribunal that O’Callaghan had set up a series of meetings in the Dail with politicians.

Dillon: “Was any of [Riga’s] money meant for politicians?”

Kay: “It wasn’t envisioned at the time.”

Mr. Kay told the Tribunal that he had been on good terms with Gilmartin initially, but this had soured soon after the crucial rezoning vote on May 16^th, 1991. The rezoning, Mr. Kay told the Tribunal, would be of central importance in the “whole thing getting off the ground”.