Property developer Mr Tom Gilmartin has claimed a document bearing his signature entered into evidence at the Mahon tribunal is not the document he signed.
An agreement to purchase a tranche of land in Neilstown west Dublin from Cork-based property developer, Mr Owen O'Callaghan, was put before the tribunal today but Mr Gilmartin said that while the printed text of the agreement appeared to be accurate, there were blank spaces were he had written dates and initials.
The contract had been filled out during a meeting between the two developers on December 7th 1988.
They finalised an agreement for the transfer of lands from Mr O'Callaghan to Mr Gallagher for a first payment of £800,000 and two further installments of £1.35 million.
The three-page document was amended at the meeting because Mr Gilmartin had agreed to a change requiring zoning, rather than planning permission before the supplementary payments were made.
Mr Gilmartin today said he would never sign a document such as the one before the tribunal. "The content of this document is incomplete. There's no dates filled in and there is no initials on it," he said.
The final page of the document before the tribunal appeared to bear Mr Gilmartin's signature at bottom but the spaces in the previous pages were not filled in and initialised as Mr Gilmartin suggested.
Mr Gilmartin intended using the land as part of the neighbouring Quarryvale shopping centre he was planning. But later that month, Mr O'Callaghan wrote to Mr Gilmartin seeking a stake in the Quarryvale development.
Mr John Gallagher SC for the tribunal said he would return to the issue at a later date.