Analysis: The former FF TD is still delivering convoluted and contradictory accounts of his finances, writes Paul Cullen
Anyone wondering just why the planning tribunal is taking so long need only drop into Dublin Castle this week.
Almost three years since he first entered the witness box, Mr Liam Lawlor is back protesting his innocence, offering to co-operate and delivering convoluted and contradictory accounts of his finances.
It's a painful spectacle. Tribunal lawyers plod along the money trail from Dublin to Liechtenstein to the Czech Republic to Gibraltar and back again, laboriously trying to piece together a picture of the millions Mr Lawlor has sent offshore.
It's taken years to peel away the layers of secrecy and to spot the false trails, but even now the tribunal is only working off partial information. Mr Lawlor has seldom proffered information without being forced to, and continually fails to provide all he is asked for.
As tribunal lawyer Mr Des O'Neill remarked at one stage: "From the outset, you did nothing [to comply with the tribunal's orders]". Mr Lawlor retorted that he had sought all documentation "from day one". He had done "everything humanly possible" to get more information for the tribunal.
The lawyers have become accustomed to working in a parallel universe, where the words on the printed pages of overseas lawyers seldom mean what they say. There are a whole series of letters indicating movements of money and various financial relationships that appear to be fictitious.
But in Mr Lawlor's world, there's always someone else to blame. At various times in the past, it has been the tribunal, or various bank managers. Yesterday, he was blaming his last solicitor for being "remiss" in not telling him that documents were required from an Irish bank, and his erstwhile business partner Mr John Caldwell, who he hasn't seen for eight years.
These days, Mr Lawlor says he can't afford legal representation, but he can still call on a driver to ferry him to and from his appearances at the tribunal.
For an hour yesterday, he was asked a simple question over and over again: was a numbered account in a Liechtenstein bank that was operated with the codeword "Lucan" his account? Judge Alan Mahon alone posed the question four times.
Mr Lawlor responded that the account had been set up for him by a Jersey-based legal adviser, Mr David Morgan, but he declined numerous invitations to say it was his account.
Yet Mr Lawlor had control over the money. Correspondence for the account was sent to his home in Ireland. Mr O'Neill even produced the application form from the bank stating that it was Mr Lawlor's account. But still Mr Lawlor stuck to his version of an answer.
Talking comes easy to him, and it's clear he will happily continue his witness box bluster for as long as the tribunal lets him. For their part, the lawyers are obliged to ask the questions that may figure in any future High Court action, but you have to wonder how long this spectacle will be allowed continue. If it takes this long to discuss with Mr Lawlor his preliminary co-operation with the tribunal, how long will his actual evidence last?
