A meeting in a Dublin hotel in March 2001 did not involve the creation of false documents for submission to the Moriarty tribunal, the tribunal was told yesterday. Colm Keena and Joe Humphries report.
The tribunal was continuing its inquiries into the differing versions of two letters written by an English solicitor which have come into its possession.
The former Fine Gael minister, Mr Michael Lowry, rejected the suggestion that new versions of the two letters were drafted so as to hide his involvement in a UK property transaction.
He said that if, as suggested by tribunal counsel Mr Jerry Healy SC, new versions of the two letters were "constituted" some time after the originals were written in July and September 2000, it was not done on his instructions or with his knowledge.
The two versions of the letters were written by an English solicitor, Mr Christopher Vaughan, who acted for Mr Lowry in relation to the property transaction. Mr Lowry said he was going to file a complaint against Mr Vaughan to the English Law Society. Mr Vaughan is refusing to attend the tribunal.
Mr Healy asked Mr Lowry about a meeting held in the Regency Airport Hotel in March 2001. The meeting was called after Investec Bank told the Moriarty tribunal it had a loan on its books which may have been backed by Mr Denis O'Brien and which was used to buy a property in Cheadle apparently owned by Mr Lowry.
At the hotel meeting were Mr Lowry; Mr Aidan Phelan, an accountant who worked for Mr Denis O'Brien; Mr Phelan's associate, Ms Helen Malone; Mr Vaughan; and Mr Lowry's accountant, Mr Denis O'Connor.
Also in the hotel and available to the meeting was Mr Kevin Phelan, a Northern Ireland-based property agent who acted for Mr Lowry in relation to the Cheadle deal and to whom the July and September 2000 letters were written.
Mr Lowry said no one took notes. He said Mr Vaughan had files with him but was not asked for copies of them. Mr O'Connor told the tribunal he objected to any inference which might be drawn from the fact that he had not taken any notes at the meeting. He never took notes, he said.
Mr O'Connor was asked by his counsel, Mr Donal O'Donnell SC, what inference people might draw from the expression of "bemusement" by Mr Jerry Healy SC, for the tribunal, that no notes were taken at the meeting.
He replied: "That there might have been an effort to either conceal. . .create new files. . .whatever. I don't know." Asked if there was any truth in that suggestion, he said: "No". The tribunal adjourned until October.