The Revenue Commissioners may not wait for the Moriarty tribunalto conclude before deciding whether it will proceed against Michael Lowry, writes Colm Keena. Despite the several inquiries into his affairs, Mr Lowry is seemingly doing well for himself. He topped the poll in Tipperary North in the recent general election and his refrigeration business is doing well.
The offices of the Moriarty tribunal have been kitted out with extra shelving and document containers and there is little doubt that they will be put to good use in the coming years. Already the tribunal has accumulated 75,000 pages of documentation as it pursues its inquiry into the awarding of the State's second mobile phone licence to Esat Digifone in 1995-96.
The awarding of the licence was the largest commercial decision ever made by a government minister and the inquiry into the decision is set to become one of the most complex and costly ever.
The "tribunal within a tribunal" begins in October and its likely duration is anyone's bet. That it will take longer than the six months or so the actual competition for the licence took in 1995 is likely. The private inquiry, which precedes the hearing of evidence in public, has already taken almost nine months and has another two to run. The legal and other bills, which already have been - and will be - incurred by the tribunal and the witnesses it calls, will no doubt exceed the €19.05 million (£15 million) the licence cost Esat Digifone. It has already cost €8.2 million.
The Moriarty tribunal's move to investigate the licence award is, among other things, a major public expenditure decision.
There are other aspects to the decision which deserve consideration. For instance, it is understood the Revenue is contemplating taking proceedings against Mr Michael Lowry regarding the aspects of his tax affairs uncovered by the McCracken (Dunnes Payments) Tribunal in 1997.
A decision to delay the initiation of those proceedings pending the outcome of the Moriarty tribunal seems to have been taken in 1997. But the tribunal is already in its fifth year and is unlikely to report for a few years yet. This means that that decision, if it persists, would mean proceedings against Mr Lowry would not be initiated until possibly a decade after the alleged offences were discovered. The alleged offences occurred in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
The public, outraged by the discoveries of the 1997 McCracken tribunal, is growing cynical about the tribunal process, because so much taxpayers' money is being spent uncovering questionable financial transactions and yet no one has been charged with any offence, let alone convicted of one.
The way matters have panned out may also be unfair to Mr Lowry, who has had to live for years now with the belief that the Revenue would take proceedings against him at some future date. He made a payment on account years ago but the Revenue has yet to settle the matter.
According to one source, however, it is no longer the case that the Revenue will wait until the Moriarty tribunal reports before making a final decision on proceedings against Mr Lowry. Where exactly the matter lies at the moment is not clear. Mr Lowry has in the past told associates he believes the Revenue intends making an example of him.
Despite this and having to deal with several continuing inquiries into his affairs, he is seemingly doing well for himself. He is still a TD, having topped the poll in Tipperary North in the recent general election. His refrigeration business is said to be doing well. The 2000 accounts for his firm, Garuda, show creditors of £2.15 million, a fourfold increase on the figure for 1999, so it would seem the company is busy.
He drives a BMW, is part of a syndicate that owns a racehorse and, as almost everyone knows by now, has property interests in England. One property is in Mansfield, Nottinghamshire. He owns 10 per cent and Mr Denis O'Brien's former accountant, Mr Aidan Phelan, owns the remainder.
The tribunal heard on Tuesday that Mr Lowry also has a property in Wigan, which was referred to as the Vineacre property. Mr Lowry said he was a member of a partnership which bought the property last year. The solicitor used was not Mr Christopher Vaughan, the English solicitor who handled the property deals the tribunal is examining. The property is not part of the tribunal's inquiries.
The inquiry into the second mobile phone licence competition, overseen by Mr Lowry, will involve six jurisdictions. As well as Mr Lowry and the major shareholders in Esat Digifone, it will also hear evidence from: civil servants; officials from the European Commission in Brussels; the Norwegian company Telenor; Danish consultants who worked on the competition; and other foreign business figures with an interest in the competition.
Up to now, the tribunal's public sessions have been involved in following money trails. It is now moving to something more difficult, the examination of a decision making process which involved a large number of parties. It is immeasurably the most complex and diffuse type of issue that has been undertaken at any stage by this tribunal," said Mr Justice Moriarty on Tuesday. He also said that after this work, the tribunal would return to the matter of acts or decisions made by Mr Charles Haughey. He then said he would not disqualify himself from dealing with matters involving Cement Roadstone Holdings, despite having formerly held a shareholding in the firm. How the two matters are related will no doubt emerge in time.
The judge also reflected on the nature of tribunal inquiries. "It is by painstaking digging rather than hunches or lighting flashes of inspiration, that a majority of important information is uncovered." The digging will continue for some years yet.
