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Updated 18.33
FORMER COMMUNICATIONS MINISTER Michael Lowry has insisted that the findings of the Moriarty Tribunal are “spurious” – and said Justice Michael Moriarty had been “grasping at straws” to sensationalise its findings.
Characterising the Tribunal’s findings – published yesterday – as “a limp report which is not based on substance, not based on fact, and would not stand up in any court of law,” Lowry attacked the standing of Justice Michael Moriarty, the sole judge of the tribunal.
“Moriarty has been wrong on several occasions on the past, his credibility has been called into question, and his final report is blatantly and sensationally wrong in its findings,” a defiant Lowry told local radio station Tipp FM.
This report has no basis in law… this man’s opinion has been proven wrong on a number of occasions. His credibility is in question. As far as I am concerned, I laid out the facts.
Moriarty had “consistently, and deliberately, ignored the sworn evidence of numerous people including senior civil servants, because it didn’t suit his theory”, a furious Lowry insisted.
“I have done absolutely nothing wrong,” he added, when asked by host Seamus Martin if he would be considering his position as a TD. The interview was the first of many Lowry carried out today to give his reaction to the Moriarty Report’s findings. On RTE’s Six One News, he also ruled out resigning his seat in the Dail, even though Labour leader Eamon Gilmore told reporters that he thought Lowry should go.
Instead, Lowry insisted that the Tribunal had examined not only his own financial affairs, but those of his mother, siblings and children going as far back as 1985 – but the Tribunal had not been able to find the “pot of gold, or secret millions” that it had apparently hoped to discover.
“The only thing they have in their report… is that I was involved in three properties,” Lowry said, asserting that he had received “zilch” in respect of those dealings.
There had been “no evidence to substantiate” the charge that Lowry had made any personal gain from his dealings with Denis O’Brien or Ben Dunne, with whom Lowry had dealt when negotiating rent for a building owned by Dunne and being rented, at the time, by then-state owned Telecom Éireann.
Lowry also characterised his relationship with Esat chief Denis O’Brien as that of a “friend”, and said that while he admitted to meeting O’Brien at Hartigan’s Bar on Lower Leeson Street after the All-Ireland Football Final of 1995, the ongoing process of the Esat bidding had never been discussed.
That meeting was a “social occasion” arranged only after the two had met at the game, he said, and the only formal business discussed was an unrelated matter relating to Telecom Éireann’s fixed line business.
Lowry said he had traditionally visited a pub directly across the street from Hartigan’s every year after the All-Ireland final, but had been unable to get into it because of the crowds following Dublin’s victory over Tyrone in that match.
The independent TD later appeared again on RTE Radio 1′s News at One (listen here) to claim that Mr Justice Michael Moriarty’s “opinions” were not backed up by evidence, and that he had never accepted money from Denis O’Brien.
Then he popped up on Newstalk’s The Right Hook just after 5pm. He told presenter George Hook that he had been “the soft target” for a tribunal that was “unfair” and “unbalanced”.
He also drew attention to the pay earned by tribunal lawyers over its years in operation. He said:
I had to defend myself against this level of scrutiny. I ended up without a legal team because I couldn’t afford to keep a legal team.
To round off a day of radio interviews, Lowry spoke to Anton Savage on Today FM’s The Last Word, just up the stairs from Newstalk. Matt Cooper, who Savage was standing in for, seemed pleased with his tough-talking substitute:
- Additional reporting by Susan Daly
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Biggest laugh of the week is Darragh O’Brien reassuring American bussiness leaders that the government is solving the housing crisis. April 1st isn’t until Saturday dude. Should be ashamed of themselves. Then again, politicians don’t do shame
Tbh I hate the carry on with shouting and childish behaviour but they’re all at it. What I’m disgusted about is the lack of urgency those in power have at fixing this crisis. Whoever you vote for these lot are not the answer.
@Gareth Wogan:
Lack of urgency? you mean lack of honesty
When can the public partake in a vote of no confidence in this shambles of a government?
@Toon Army: we have these things called elections…
@declan hassett: The only problem being they are 5 years apart!. The public should have the right to get rid of a government if they are failing to serve the people.
@Andrew Harrington: you have the right every 5 years.
He’s really struggling to keep the crèche under control. he’s always been out of his depth in that role.
“Would be disgusted” Most of us are disgusted
@GreenFlag:
Reminds me of the late Robin Williams movie MAN OF THE YEAR where a comedian runs for president and as you can imagine Robin Williams in a debate is a free for all so the moderator tries to calm him down ..
oh don’t make a mockery of our democratic process!!!!
it was a mockery long before i got here ..
.
They’ll all be drinking subsidised pints and gins in the Dail bar now. Fair play to them.
Disgusted by the way the majority of them have voted in the past week and the callousness towards homelessness. Don’t particularly care who is having a shouting match in the Dail.
@Rochelle Hart:
there are too many people in ireland
Michael Martin has a home to go to. Pearse Doherty has a home to go to. One man’s in government the other man is not. The man not in government is asking the man in government who appalled the promotion of the evictions on 1/4/2033 “where are these people going to go?”.
Tha Tha the man in government Michael Martin has no answer and turns to personal attacks on the other man Pearse Doherty. Sure didn’t Barry Cowen yesterday state that keeping the eviction ban in place was like giving sweets to children.
That’s Finna Fail for you, greedy arrogant toothless government politicians who do any thing for power. Very like Leo and Fine Gael.
Next election think before you vote and remember all the homeless children
@Liam Foy:
pearse celebrates IRA cowards who murdered women and children then he cries for the homeless
And so we are left with very little choice.. No one in the government has earned our admiration. What a sad situation.
Let’s stop all this nonsense now. The opposition want the eviction ban extended for another 6 months… so ok give it to them but in 6 months time that’s it . Its open season. If a landlord wants to sell , let him sell. And I’m am convinced that if the present government is overthrown in the morning and replaced by all the opposition parties we will still be he in 2/3 years time discussing the housing crisis and the new government (todays opposition) will be telling us , its not our fault , we inherited it from FFG/Greens… because if they could guarantee me that they have a plan at the moment to have this crisis resolved in 2/3 years time I would vote them in tomorrow
@Michael Costello: the facts are though that there is no 2/3 year fix. The housing crisis is 30 years in the making and unfortunately the solutions will not solve the problem for 10 years I’d suggest. It certainly will not be solved in the lifetime of this government or the next.
@NotMyIreland: sadly I would have to agree with you but I would love , probably like the rest of us some serious movements could get started in the couple of years.
@Michael Costello: yeah agree there. We need to see some genuine turning points on some of the issues at the root cause of the crisis. All elected officials should be working together on this emergency rather than acting the way they are with cheap political point scoring and these silly irrelevant same old arguments taking up Dail time needs to be cut out. If you watch the Dail live you would be left wondering is it even worth voting at all, they all seem so self serving.
@Michael Costello: social housing has been starved of funding by FFGL for almost 20 years. You expect it resolved in 2/3? I expect to see inroads to proper funding and policies to rectify those 2 decades of neglect and new builds progressing, but 2/3 years is never gonna sort it out.
Is that what we are paying our taxed for
Sinn Fein making a difficult problem sound simple, it’s not. many competing rights going on. Every developed country has a housing problem. Many issues are societal, broken families, single households, migrants from EU and further afield. Think back to 5s where people lived with parents, got married, some put their name down for a house in Ballyfermot, Drimnagh etc. That was the only way for most.
Many of the large social housing development s had difficult social issues which they forget. It was not until the 70s that real possibilities of owning homes of your own extended to so many.
It’s NOT a simple problem, SinnFein are just using it to soften up electorate to gain power.
I don’t hear or see any policies in Detail from them. Their main aim is to be in Power to drive a United Ireland, every thing else is much further down the pecking order.
They are agresdive in this and don’t want to work for the good of all.
@Ann owens:
anything to deflect their IRA friends
Children’s playtime
We’re way past disgusted fella!
We’ve been disgusted for quite a while
Ceann Comhairle is full of his own importance he thinks he has the answer to everything and he is has an arrogance attitude one of the gang.
If this was in Russia we’d have loads to say
@trebloc01: listening to Danny healy really bawling his head is like a comedy show, what a gombeen, they are all the same,
@Murf:
when he was sworn in as a TD
business interests etc
he never wrote down he owned a pub
he “forgot” to mention it
had the Ceann Comhairle provided a character reference for Joseph Dempsey
the public would be ‘disgusted’
have your say