COUNSEL FOR Fianna Fáil TD Mary O'Rourke has said an incident involving the late business partner of Cork developer Owen O'Callaghan and his client, was "not as benign" as the Mahon tribunal had been told.
In evidence to the tribunal last month, Mr O'Callaghan said the late Tom Diskin, his business partner in the Golden Island development in Athlone, had approached Ms O'Rourke at her home in 1994 to lobby her for tax designation for the development.
He said Mr Diskin had "put his hand on her shoulder" and she had called the gardaí.
Paul McGarry, counsel for Ms O'Rourke, said yesterday that his client had given a statement to the tribunal on the matter.
"I don't want to go into too much detail because Mr Diskin is no longer with us . . . but I have to suggest to you that it's not quite as benign as the information you have given to the tribunal," Mr McGarry said.
"Yes well, I am just quoting what was said locally, and I believe it was also in the newspapers," Mr O'Callaghan responded.
Mr O'Callaghan was being cross-examined at the tribunal yesterday as part of its investigation into planning corruption surrounding the rezoning of the Quarryvale development, now the Liffey Valley Shopping Centre, in west Dublin.
Mr McGarry also challenged Mr O'Callaghan's assertion that Ms O'Rourke was opposed to the Golden Island development because it was not in her area of Athlone.
He said the reason she was against it was because it was not in the centre of town.
Mr O'Callaghan said when he made a presentation on Quarryvale at the Green Isle Hotel, Ms O'Rourke was present and had asked him when he was coming to Athlone.
He outlined his plans for Golden Island to her, he said.
"When I told her where the site was she actually walked away from me saying it was in the wrong area," Mr O'Callaghan said.
Also cross-examining yesterday, Cormac Ó Dúlacháin SC, counsel for the late Tom Hand and his family, said it did not seem "real" that Mr O'Callaghan would have dismissed "in a trite" manner an alleged demand for £250,000 from his client.
Mr O'Callaghan had said Mr Hand, a former Fine Gael councillor on Dublin County Council, demanded £250,000 from him to support the Quarryvale development at a meeting in the office of his lobbyist Frank Dunlop in October 1992.
He said the meeting only lasted two minutes and he dismissed Mr Hand in a hurry.
Mr Ó Dúlacháin pointed out that a vote on the Quarryvale development was due in December that year and every vote was important.
". . . to have treated any approach as such as is alleged by Tom Hand in a trite and dismissive manner doesn't seem real," Mr Ó Dúlacháin said.
"Well, I'm afraid it was," Mr O'Callaghan told the Mahon tribunal.
