If Mr Liam Lawlor is found guilty of contempt of court today he could face the loss of both his freedom and a considerable amount of money.
Mr Justice Smyth will give his verdict this afternoon in the case taken by the Flood tribunal against the Fianna Fail TD for failing to provide it with various documents and records.
Mr Lawlor denied a deliberate breach of court orders to provide the documentation. He said he "misinterpreted" the order.
If the High Court judge finds Mr Lawlor was in contempt of court, he could order him to go to jail as part of a civil enforcement procedure.
This is not, strictly speaking, a jail sentence, as its objective would be to secure compliance with the order. Mr Lawlor could be sent to jail and brought from there to give evidence to the tribunal, returning to jail at night, until he had satisfactorily completed his evidence.
But ordering Mr Lawlor to be jailed may not be the best way of ensuring compliance with the order. Mr Frank Clarke SC, who appeared for the tribunal, did not explicitly ask for imprisonment when he said his failure to co-operate "should not go unmarked."
If Mr Justice Smyth does find against him, it would be open to him to say Mr Lawlor was in contempt, and seriously enough to warrant imprisonment. He could add he noted Mr Lawlor's statement that he now wanted to put this right, spell out what this would entail, say he was not ordering immediate imprisonment and put the case in for mention in a few weeks to check that the TD had carried out the court's instructions.
However, this might not be the end of the matter for Mr Lawlor. If he was found in contempt, he could also be fined.
More seriously, he would be liable for the costs of these proceedings, and for two previous sets of court proceedings.
He would also have provided the tribunal with a strong basis to argue that he should not receive his costs for appearing before it up to now. His total legal bill would then be very large indeed.
His litigation might not be over yet. Despite the fact that he has said he will now co-operate fully with the tribunal, he has made similar undertakings in the past following court judgments, yet has gone on to appeal these judgments to the Supreme Court.
