Businessman Denis O'Brien has lost an attempt to stop the Moriarty tribunal holding public hearings into his 1998 purchase of Doncaster Rovers football club.

The High Court yesterday rejected Mr O'Brien's application for a court order quashing the tribunal's decision to proceed to public hearings.

His lawyers had argued that the proposed hearings were outside the tribunal's terms of reference because the transaction took place after the inquiry was set up in 1997.

The tribunal is investigating claims that former Fine Gael minister Michael Lowry was involved in the purchase of the football club. However, Mr O'Brien claimed there was no evidence that the politician was involved.

He is expected to appeal Mr Justice Henry Abbott's decision to the Supreme Court later this year.

Doncaster Rovers was purchased for €4.3 million in August 1998 by a company acting for Mr O'Brien's family trust. Both Mr O'Brien and Mr Lowry have stated that Mr Lowry had no involvement in the transaction, but the tribunal says a letter written by an English solicitor, Chistopher Vaughan, in September 1998 appears to point to the politician's involvement.

Mr Vaughan, who will not come to Ireland to appear before the tribunal, now says he was mistaken in his belief that Mr Lowry was involved.

Lawyers for Mr O'Brien argued that the tribunal's terms of reference only covered alleged payments made to Mr Lowry during the period when he held public office. To argue otherwise would be to place the politician under "permanent supervision", they claimed.

It was also claimed that the only evidence the tribunal had to justify public hearings was Mr Vaughan's letter. Air transport arrangements would show Mr Lowry was not in England on the date suggested in the letter.

The tribunal pointed out that although Mr Lowry was not a minister at the time of the Doncaster transaction, he was in public office as a TD.

In his judgment, Mr Justice Abbott said he did not accept the tribunal's submission that it was entitled to inquire into payments allegedly made to Mr Lowry at any time after the inquiry was set up. This proposition was "a contradiction in terms".

"It would seem to me that, save in the most exceptional cases, the Constitution would not permit the effective supervision of citizens into the future by scrutiny and enquiry of tribunal."

To suggest the Oireachtas could set up an inquiry into payments to be made in the future, if the provenance of such payments was entirely in the future, was "plain nonsense", he said.

However, the judge continued, the tribunal was entitled to enquire into payments relating to a transaction that "straddled" the date when it was established.

"I consider the Doncaster transaction may only come within the terms of reference of the tribunal if the alleged 'involvement' of Mr Lowry is being investigated as an alleged payoff in respect of some matter within the terms of reference of the tribunal which occurred before the date of the appointment of the tribunal and fixing of its terms of reference."

Mr Justice Abbott said the transaction arose in the terms of a "significant overlap of professional, personal and business associates" and he was satisfied that the tribunal was empowered under its terms of reference to proceed with the public hearings.

He was also satisfied that there was sufficient evidence to allow the tribunal proceed "in the sense of giving cause for further enquiry".