The decision of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) not to bring criminal charges against anyone arising from the Moriarty tribunal\u2019s final report in 2011 has been welcomed by Michael Lowry and Denis O\u2019Brien.<\/p>\n
The outcome cannot have come as a great surprise to the two men, given the duration of the Garda investigation \u2013 it began in 2011 \u2013 and the differences between how tribunals of inquiry operate and the higher standard of proof that applies in criminal law.<\/p>\n
However, it marks the end of a controversy that predates the establishment of the tribunal in 1997 and has hung over the careers of both men ever since.<\/p>\n
The tribunal\u2019s first report, published in 2006, was predominantly concerned with the financial affairs of the late Charles Haughey, former Fianna F\u00e1il leader and taoiseach. <\/p>\n
The second report was focused on payments from O\u2019Brien and supermarket tycoon the late Ben Dunne, to Lowry, as well as the role played by Lowry, as a Fine Gael minister for communications, in the awarding of the State\u2019s second mobile phone licence to O\u2019Brien\u2019s Esat Digifone consortium in 1996.<\/p>\n
In his statement on Tuesday, Lowry criticised the tribunal\u2019s 2011 report as \u201cflawed\u201d and based on \u201cconjecture, manipulation and speculation\u201d rather than hard facts or admissible evidence. <\/p>\n
O\u2019Brien, in his statement on Wednesday, said tribunals have proven to be \u201cdesperately flawed\u201d and \u201cdesperately unfair\u201d ways to investigate significant matters of public concern.<\/p>\n
The tribunal chairman, Judge Michael Moriarty, had a difficult task, he said, but would \u201cessentially reject available evidence\u201d deemed unhelpful to the \u201ccase being prosecuted\u201d by the tribunal.<\/p>\n
He cited as an example the evidence of Michael Andersen, the Danish expert who was the lead consultant to the licence competition won by Esat.<\/p>\n
In his evidence, Andersen told the tribunal its \u201cpredefined theory\u201d when conducting its inquiry \u201cwas based on assumptions that were wrong\u201d.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Brien said Andersen\u2019s \u201cresolute defence of the integrity of the licence process, very obviously not welcomed by the tribunal, was essentially ignored\u201d.<\/p>\n
Neither O\u2019Brien nor Lowry referred in their relatively short statements to the money trail findings of the tribunal, which they rejected at the time of the tribunal\u2019s report.<\/p>\n
Tribunals of inquiry are established by the Oireachtas to inquire into matters of serious public concern and are tasked with reporting back to the Oireachtas on their conclusions. The Moriarty (Payments to Politicians) Tribunal was established against a backdrop of huge scandal caused by the 1996 revelation, in the Irish Independent, that extensive renovations to Lowry\u2019s home in Holycross, Co Tipperary, had been paid for by Dunnes Stores and treated in the supermarket\u2019s books as expenditure on its outlet in the Ilac Centre in Dublin, and subsequent revelations about Dunnes payments to Haughey.<\/p>\n
In 1996, Lowry was minister for communications and a key figure in Fine Gael\u2019s fundraising operations. He was a potential future leader of the party and a potential taoiseach.<\/p>\n
He had availed of the 1993 tax amnesty. He had bank accounts in the Isle of Man into which money from Dunnes was deposited. Money from O\u2019Brien was making its way towards a Lowry account in the Isle of Man in 1996\/1997, the tribunal decided, though the transfer later stalled against the backdrop of the huge controversy engulfing Lowry. After Lowry\u2019s fall from grace in late 1996, the tribunal also decided that O\u2019Brien supplied financial support to Lowry for property ventures in England. <\/p>\n
Its 2011 report not only linked the O\u2019Brien money-trail events to the Esat licence award, but it also examined Lowry\u2019s interference in a rent review on an O\u2019Connell Street office block owned by Dunne. <\/p>\n
Lowry\u2019s unsuccessful effort to secure a rent increase at the public\u2019s expense was the subject of particularly strong comment from Moriarty.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat was contemplated and attempted on the part of Mr Dunne and Mr Lowry was profoundly corrupt to a degree that was nothing short of breathtaking,\u201d he said in his report. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhat was reprehensible about his actions was that the tenant of the building was Telecom \u00c9ireann, of which, as minister for communications, Mr Lowry was the ultimate shareholder.\u201d<\/p>\n
The tribunal still exists (though Moriarty is no longer involved); it deals with claims for legal fees and other matters. As of January, it has cost the exchequer \u20ac78 million. <\/p>\n
No doubt, there are serious issues to be addressed about how the State can investigate matters of significant public concern without unleashing the expense and complexity of tribunals of inquiry and their associated legal fees.<\/p>\n
But it is not difficult to argue that the benefit to the State, and its citizens, of the Republic\u2019s relatively low level of public corruption, remains an almost priceless public good.<\/p>\n
Lowry is a notably indefatigable player in Irish public life and, despite various crises along the way, seemingly a successful businessman. <\/p>\n
However, his career in public life has been beset by scandal. He was a target of the McCracken (Dunnes Payments) Tribunal, the Judge tribunal, an inquiry by the Revenue Commissioners<\/a> that went on for years and a Garda investigation <\/a>that also lasted years. His refrigeration business, Garuda Ltd, trading as Streamline Enterprises, was the subject of a company law inquiry<\/a> in the 1990s and a Revenue conviction<\/a>. <\/p>\n Despite this chequered history, Lowry, now an independent TD, played a key role in the establishment of the current Fianna F\u00e1il-Fine Gael Coalition Government and remains a significant player in Irish politics. He has represented his constituents in Tipperary in D\u00e1il \u00c9ireann uninterrupted since 1987.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The decision of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) not to bring criminal charges against anyone arising from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":380745,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[40],"tags":[9,10,36941,18,13,14,6,19,17,11,12,15,16,50487,174124,5,7,8],"class_list":["post-380744","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-denis-obrien","tag-eire","tag-featured-news","tag-featurednews","tag-headlines","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-latest-news","tag-latestnews","tag-main-news","tag-mainnews","tag-michael-lowry","tag-moriarty-tribunal","tag-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116214505378686058","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380744","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=380744"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380744\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/380745"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=380744"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=380744"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=380744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}