Dublin West TD Mr Liam Lawlor will learn early next week whether he is to return to prison, face a fine, a verbal censure or be cleared after Mr Justice Symth reserved judgment in the case of the Flood tribunal against him in the High Court this afternoon.
Mr Justice Smyth will rule on Mr Lawlor has supplied the tribunal with all the documents it wants concerning his financial affairs. The judgment will establish whether Mr Lawlor has supplied adequate documentation on some of his business dealings and interests in accordance to an order by Mr Justice Smyth last January.
Mr Lawlor was fined £10,000 at the time and served one week of a three-month sentence, with the suspension of the remainder conditional on his compliance with the tribunal's request for documentation.
This morning the court heard from Mr Lawlor’s counsel, Mr John Trainor SC, who argued that sending the TD back to jail would be inappropriate.
"He has made a sustained effort to comply with the tribunal. I urge that it would be an inappropriate response of this court to a revisit a further period of imprisonment," Mr Trainor said.
Asked by Mr Justice Smyth what he thought would be an appropriate censure, if that was the court decided on, Mr Trainor suggested a fine less than that of the original £10,000 laid down in January this year.
He said Mr Lawlor was "deeply apprehensive that he does not fall further foul of the powers of the court".
Mr Trainor reminded the court again that Mr Lawlor had furnished the tribunal with 25,000 pages of documents, while 68 affidavits had been sworn and inquiries had been made from 272 separate parties.
However, in his summing up, lawyer for the tribunal Mr Frank Clarke SC said it was not the quantity but the quality of the documents that was at issue.
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He pointed to several areas, including bank accounts in Lichtenstein and business interests in several companies both here and in the Czech Republic, in which documents had not been produced and where inadequate reasons for the failure to produce them had been given.
In particular he was concerned at a lack of information relating to the sale of 55 acres of land in Co Dublin in 1987, and whether Mr Lawlor had any beneficial interest in the underlying companies involved. Mr Lawlor denies that he did.
In announcing his decision to reserve judgment Mr Justice Smyth quoted from Hamlet, saying "as Polonius said to Laertes ‘Take each man’s censure, but reserve thy judgement’ which is what I intend to do."Judgement is expected on Monday or Tuesday.