A chance to live his fairytale of New York this Christmas

Given that half the Dβil seems to have visited Ground Zero in New York over the past while, you could hardly blame Liam Lawlor for wanting to make the trip too.

So the Dublin West TD popped into a travel agent a few months ago and thoughtfully bought tickets for a Christmas trip to Manhattan for himself and his wife. Their son, Niall, lives just two blocks away from the World Trade Centre and his wife is expecting a child shortly.

But Liam's version of the Nativity had a cloud on the horizon. There was the nuisance of that prison sentence imposed by the High Court earlier in the year. He staved off Mountjoy only by an appeal to the Supreme Court, and its judgment was due, just like his daughter-in-law's baby, before Christmas.

You or I might worry about something like that. We might put our plans on hold. Or worry about having to forfeit the tickets. Even worry about whether we'd be given a visa.

Not Liam, though. No one, not the tribunal, the courts or the governor of Mountjoy jail, was going to play Scrooge to his family Christmas. It would be all right on the night.

And, in a way, it was. Yesterday's Supreme Court judgment did turn out more Groundhog Day than Ground Zero.

For the third time in a row, the courts pasted him for his lack of co-operation with the Flood tribunal.

A second one-week term in jail was confirmed.

By this stage, so many judges have thrown the book at him that he could set up a legal library.

For once, the normally garrulous TD was not present in court, and could not be contacted afterwards.

Yet the five judges of the court did agree to defer his sentence to January 2nd.

Liam's Dβil work and his holiday would not be interfered with.

The Lawlor family would, after all, have their Fairytale Christmas in New York.