In defence of the father

Letters: Irish Times 11th April 2008

Madam,

Aside from the many false premises required to sustain the argument presented by Paul Cullen (Opinion, April 9th), a prominent theme was that Mr Ahern is as entitled to due process and a presumption of innocence as anybody else – surely an unarguable position.

It’s a shame, then, that he, in common with several Ministers and other commentators, doesn’t provide the same courtesy to my father, Tom Gilmartin. He dismisses my father as being “as flaky a witness as has ever come to Dublin Castle”, and thus doesn’t shy away himself from pronouncing judgment on my father’s evidence before the conclusion of due process.

If he truly believes that my father’s evidence can be compared to the tales told by Mr Frank Dunlop (whom my father exposed, to a chorus of disbelief, in 1998), Mr Lawlor and others, then in my view this calls into question his own judgment as a tribunal correspondent for this paper over a number of years.

My father has told the truth, has many times been proven to be correct, and has been vilified for far too long by those in positions of power and influence in this State. I feel it is about time someone stood up for him.

Yours, etc,

THOMAS GILMARTIN jnr, The Lough, Cork.