Lawlor accuses Gilmartin of lying about 1989 meeting
Former Fianna Fáil TD Liam Lawlor has accused property developer Tom Gilmartin of lying about a meeting he allegedly had with senior government ministers in Leinster House in 1989.
Mr Lawlor made the accusation while cross-examining Mr Gilmartin at the Mahon Tribunal today. He said the property developer’s description of the inside of Leinster House was inconsistent. Mr Lawlor said Mr Gilmartin had given a perfect description of the Fianna Fáil meeting room on the fifth floor of the building, but his account of the route he took to the meeting was a perfect description of the lay-out of a ministerial block on the first floor.
Mr Gilmartin has claimed that Mr Lawlor took him to the meeting with the ministers, including Taoiseach Charles Haughey, in early 1989 to discuss his planned Quarryvale development in west Dublin.
However, the former Fianna Fáil TD said today that this was not true. He said he was on bad terms with Mr Haughey at the time and, if any meeting was arranged, it would have been set up by then Environment Minister Padraig Flynn.
Mr Lawlor accused Mr Gilmartin of repeatedly lying about this 1989 meeting, but Mr Gilmartin replied: "I wasn’t jailed for lying," an obvious reference to Mr Lawlor’s previous imprisonment for refusing to co-operate with the tribunal.
