The perfect & most honourable Gentleman Tom Gilmartin 'deserves apology from the Irish state'
Sligo man Tom Gilmartin is owed a full & public apology from the State.
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.
The evidence disputes this portrayal. Gilmartin was primarily a businessman intent on turning a buck. There is nothing wrong with that. Business makes the world go round. Much of the evidence uncovered and testimony heard by the tribunal suggests he was an honest man who valued honour.
However, the manner in which he was treated when he arrived in Dublin with his big plans was indicative of a tinpot dictatorship in some underdeveloped corner of the world.
Today, at a time when inward investment is badly needed, special laws have been enacted to entice investors. The Finance Bill just passed by the Dáil includes a provision for major tax relief for executives of companies coming in to invest in the country. The provisions are so generous that concern was expressed by the Revenue Commissioners about unfairness.
In the mid-1980s, at a time when inward investment was very badly needed, Gilmartin arrived. Far from being greeted with fawning tax concessions, he was regarded in some quarters as a walking, talking ATM machine, who would spew out bundles of cash on demand. Rather than woo him, a number of high standing people erected roadblocks, which would only be dismantled on receipt of extortionate demands.
Mahon largely accepted his accounts of the list of extortionate demands to which he was subjected. First up was TD Liam Lawlor. Gilmartin was introduced to Lawlor in 1988 as a man who might be able to help him in attempting to develop the Quarryvale site (which ultimately became Liffey Valley Shopping Centre). Weeks later, Lawlor barged in uninvited on a London meeting between Gilmartin and his British partners, Arlington.
The TD demanded a fee, said he had been appointed by the Government to look after the projects Gilmartin was trying to get off the ground.
Arlington executives instructed Gilmartin to pay Lawlor £3,500 per month. This persisted for nearly six months. A separate payment of £33,000 was also paid to Lawlor. Twice Lawlor demanded of Gilmartin that he hand over half of his 20% stake in the developments.
On one occasion that year, Lawlor entered Gilmartin’s AIB branch in Blanchardstown and demanded that he be paid £10,000 from Gilmartin’s account.
The TD introduced the developer to George Redmond, Dublin city and county assistant manager. Then Lawlor demanded £200,000, to be split between himself and Redmond.
Gimartin didn’t hand over the cash and was then metaphorically slapped around. When he was buying up land in Quarryvale, Redmond tipped off another developer who began to bid in order to jack up the price. In the end, Gilmartin paid £70,000 an acre when he had been paying £40,000.
Finbar Hanrahan, a two-bit Fianna Fáil councillor, was introduced to Gilmartin. He demanded £100,000 for his vote to rezone Quarryvale.
As Gilmartin left the room he was approached by a man who gave him a piece of paper with bank account details and told him to put £5m into the offshore account if he wanted to succeed at his project.
“You people make the mafia look like monks,” Gilmartin told the unidentified person.
There was an underlying current to the contempt shown for Gilmartin. He was an immigrant, one of the millions who were coughed out of a country that simply couldn’t keep all its citizens. Like legions of others, he was forced to take the boat because he was not among the chosen few who had corralled the scant opportunity which existed.
He was of typical small farmer stock from Sligo in the West of Ireland. He was of the majority who were disenfranchised for no other reason than the accident of birth. And like others, he would prove himself in a society where intelligence and hard work were rewarded with opportunity. He was entitled to believe that the same rules would apply when he returned home after 30 years, armed with his experience and investment.
Their ilk viewed the likes of Gilmartin as somebody to exploit, rather than cultivate. He was seen for what could be wrung out of him rather than what he had to offer the national economy.
And each of these men presented themselves as representatives of the State. Would they have been as blatantly extortionate towards an investor from another country, or did they reserve their greatest contempt for one of their own?
He is entitled to an apology. He is entitled to have one read out in the Dáil by Enda Kenny on behalf of the Irish people. What was visited on him was an indictment on a whole way of life, and that it was a native son who bore the worst brunt of that culture should be a matter of deep shame.
Hogan says thanks to the 805,500 or so levy Charge house-holders for ‘their patriotic gesture’
1,654,208 – The number of private households in Ireland, according to the Census. After all the shouting a total of 805,569 have registered for the Household Charge,
Just over 800,000 householders have paid or registered for the household charge by the deadline, bringing to approximately half the proportion of property owners who have paid.
Anyone yet to pay the charge will now face a fine. According to a statement from the Local Government Management Agency the charge has raised €62.1 million to date.
Included in the 805,569 households deemed to have paid are 12,677 properties registered for waivers and 89,000 postal applications which have yet to be processed.
In a statement issued at midnight the agency said it was expecting a large number of property registrations to be received by post next week and, as a result, the final tally would not be available until this backlog was dealt with.
Thousands of demonstrators protested against the household charge in Dublin yesterday as the deadline for the €100 levy approached.
Gardaí said that some 5,000 people had taken part in the protest, which began at Parnell Square at 1pm and culminated in a rally near the Convention Centre, where Fine Gael is holding its annual ardfheis.
Protest organisers said afterwards that up to 10,000 people had participated. A Garda spokesman said the march passed off peacefully.
However, a man mistaken for Minister for the Environment Phil Hogan was surrounded, jostled and pushed to the floor by a small group participating in the rally. The man – who insisted “They’ve got the wrong guy. I’m not Phil Hogan” – was helped into a Garda car which was subsequently rocked by a small number of protestors before leaving the scene.
Speaking at the ardfheis, the Taoiseach said the rate of online registrations was running at over 5,000 an hour. However, the final figure will almost certainly fall far short of the Government’s own projections.
Mr Kenny said today’s protest was perfectly legitimate but he also pointed out that the household charge was now the law of the land. He said the new tax was about the provision of services in every town and village in the country.
The State’s 34 city and county councils face having to make significant cuts in local services if revenues fall short of the €160 million the charge was expected to generate.
Minister for Finance Michael Noonan told parliamentary colleagues this week that the budgetary allocation for local government had been made – taking account of the €160 million revenue projected from the new tax – and no further funds would be made available.
The fund will be allocated evenly among local authorities, taking account of population size, and will not reflect the level of uptake of the new charge in each area.
The Local Government Management Agency has been given responsibility for collecting the new tax and compiling the database of all liable households. Efforts to make householders compliant with the new charge will be the sole responsibility of the local authorities and the agency.
Agency chief executive Paul McSweeney said yesterday it would take some weeks to process all registrations. Once complete the agency would compile a full register, using a number of databases, including those of the ESB and Revenue; the second-home tax register and the register of private rented accommodation.
The database would allow non-registering households to be identified. The extent of access to those databases will need to be agreed by Data Commissioner Billy Hawkes. Anecdotal evidence suggests the rate of registrations varies across the country, from 25 per cent in northern counties to 50 per cent in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown.
5,000 protesters attend the anti-Household Charge demo in Dublin
AN estimated 5,000 people from across the country travelled to city centre Dublin today to participate in a protest against the €100 household charge
Protesters from across Ireland included demonstrators from the Donegal Action Against Austerity group, who had walked from Malin Head to Dublin in protest at the charge, and who featured on last night’s Late Late Show.
The demonstration began at about 1:30pm, with busloads of further volunteers joining in at around 2pm, gathering around the National Convention Centre where Fine Gael’s Árd-Fheis is continuing.
A security cordon was put in place by Gardaí, who eyewitnesses said intervened on a number of occasions as protestors tried to gain access to the Fine Gael event.
One man who resembled environment minister Phil Hogan, whose department is responsible for the charge, had to be assisted by Gardaí after being confronted by demonstrators mistaking him for the minister
Gardaí said there had been no reports of any major public order disturbances, and that no arrests had been made.
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