Just when it seemed it was approaching its end, the Moriarty tribunal has opened up a whole new set of vistas. This time, it seems, the focus will be on Fine Gael.

The tribunal dropped a bombshell on Tuesday when it revealed that it was investigating four cases of financial links between the former Fine Gael minister, Michael Lowry, and the multimillionaire tax exile, Denis O'Brien.

While the development was undoubtedly met with dismay by both men, it also dismayed Fine Gael party headquarters. A close reading of the opening statement of the tribunal counsel, John Coughlan SC, left party officers feeling that their troubles may be only beginning.

First, there was the passing reference to Lowry's role as chairman of the trustees of Fine Gael. "The trustees owned the assets of the party. The assets include all the funds in the party's account."

The tribunal believes it can, if it feels it should, investigate payments to Fine Gael during the period Lowry was chairman of the trustees.

Lowry held the position from 1993 to 1996, a period during which Fine Gael had unprecedented success in fund-raising. Lowry's spectacular rise through the party ranks was based on his impressive fundraising ability.

The second reference of note came when Coughlan was disclosing details of a payment, of £147,000 sterling, received by Lowry when he was still minister for transport, energy and communications. The money came by way of a Bank of Ireland Jersey account belonging to the late David Austin, a senior executive with the Smurfit group, friend of Lowry and fund-raiser for Fine Gael. (Austin was involved in a £60,000 payment from the Smurfit group to Charles Haughey in 1989, a payment also being investigated by the tribunal).

"On the overhead projector we have the draft made payable to Mr Austin", said Coughlan, referring to the draft which was lodged to Lowry's account. "It's funded from his own account. This account of Mr Austin's appears to have been opened some time in late July of 1996, and the opening lodgments consisted of the sums of £100,000 and £50,000, which the tribunal has been informed represents the proceeds of the sale of a property which Mr Austin had in Spain."

The bombshell was that the Spanish property had been sold to Denis O'Brien.

Another payment which the tribunal is examining, a $50,000 (£33,000) donation from Telenor/Esat to Fine Gael in late 1995, came through another account Austin had with the Bank of Ireland in Jersey.

Although nothing was said this week to indicate it, it seems likely the tribunal has also gained access to the records of this account. Time will tell whether this has implications for Fine Gael.

IN LATE 1995, when the $50,000 donation was made, Michael Lowry was on top of the world. The Tipperary minister had been first elected to the Dail in 1987, been appointed chairman of the parliamentary party in 1993 and made a government minister in 1994.

He had left school early and, after working in a local refrigeration business, had branched out on his own. Ben Dunne made him a reasonably wealthy man in return for the services he supplied. When Lowry bought a house in Holy Cross, Co Tipperary, in the early 1990s, Dunne got a building firm to carry out extensive work on the house, and picked up the tab, which came to almost £400,000.

In October 1995 Lowry oversaw a process whereby the State's second mobile phone licence was awarded to O'Brien's company, Esat Digifone, despite opposition from major international companies.

It was a hugely valuable licence, and the announcement took everyone by surprise, not least because it had not been expected for another month. Lowry told the cabinet that he wanted to announce the decision straight away because he was afraid of leaks. Two months later the Telenor/Esat payment was made.

In 1996 Lowry set about establishing a Dublin home. With the help of the late Michael Holly, a property developer and builder involved in the K Club development, he got a house on Carysfort Avenue, Blackrock. The house, bought by Holly at auction for £200,000 before being sold on for the same price to Lowry, was in need of renovation. Holly said he could have the work done for £90,000. Lowry had no trouble sourcing the finance.

The account in Jersey which received £150,000 sterling from the sale by Austin of a Spanish property to O'Brien was opened in late July with a lodgment of money from the sale. Lowry's account, in Irish Nationwide (Isle of Man), was opened in October, and the opening lodgment was a draft for £147,000 given to Lowry by Austin, who bought the draft using the money he had got from O'Brien. (The Isle of Man bank is refusing to cooperate with the tribunal).

Lowry was going to use the money from Austin to pay for the work on his new Dublin home. Then the world fell in. It was revealed in the media that his Tipperary home had been paid for by Dunnes and treated in the Dunnes books as a business expense. His ministerial career came to an abrupt end.

On February 7th, 1997, the day the Dail voted to establish the McCracken (Dunnes Payments) tribunal, Lowry returned the money to Austin. He has told the Moriarty tribunal he will be saying in evidence that the money was always intended as a loan.

The Moriarty tribunal seemed to have been finished with Lowry after it heard evidence from him in March 1999. There remained the issue of his relations with the Revenue, but that seemed unlikely to reveal anything of any substance. He himself said from the witness-box that he had co-operated fully with the tribunal, just as he had with the Revenue.

It doesn't quite look like that now. The tribunal's recent discovery, following media revelations, of the Telenor/Esat payment has led to information which indicates that Denis O'Brien played a central role in setting up the payment.

O'Brien has denied this and this week said he will deal with the matters before the tribunal to its satisfaction. Lowry has said he knew nothing of the payment, but the fact that O'Brien and Austin were involved will mean the payment will be tested forcefully by the tribunal.

The tribunal is obviously furious that, after so much work with Lowry, it has now discovered a hitherto undisclosed offshore account. Its attitude to Lowry has been worsened by its discovery that all the time it was investigating his affairs he was involved in new business dealings in England which he had never mentioned to the tribunal and which they have now discovered have links to O'Brien.

In July 1998 Lowry was contacted by an English businessman and told there was a property in Mansfield which Lowry might be interested in. Lowry bought the property, paying a 10 per cent deposit of £25,000 sterling.

By March 1999 the balance still had not been paid. Lowry became involved with Aidan Phelan, a close associate of O'Brien. Phelan got £300,000 sterling from an account in Credit Suisse First Boston, London, and paid the £230,000 sterling balance on the Mansfield site. The London account belonged to O'Brien. The money was lodged to an account in the names of Phelan and Lowry, and the two men were apparently to share ownership of the property.

According to Coughlan, Aidan Phelan will say "he had the authority of Mr Denis O'Brien to draw this sum [£300,000] from the account" and that it was in respect of services rendered.

After the completion of the Mansfield deal, Lowry used the remainder of the £300,000 to place a deposit on another English property, in Cheadle. The balance needed to close the deal, £420,000 sterling, came by way of a loan from the Dublin bank GE Capital Woodchester.

Phelan, who had a relationship with the bank, negotiated the loan. When the bank later became unhappy with aspects of the deal, Phelan told an executive not to worry, "as this was a Denis O'Brien transaction".

O'Brien has said he knows nothing about the property transactions. In all, the tribunal is looking at funds totalling almost £500,000 which were linked to O'Brien and travelled towards Lowry/Fine Gael. No evidence has been heard yet in relation to any of these dealings.

No doubt O'Brien will be using some of the £230 million he made from the sale of Esat to buy top-notch lawyers to help him put his story across. One of his major difficulties is that he has to give evidence concerning not one but four links between him and Lowry.