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“DID HE BURN the documents?”
That was a question posed by Sinn Féin’s Pearse Doherty in the Dáil today, where he used his standing time in the House to speak about Independent Tipperary TD Michael Lowry.
Doherty raised the issue of the 1990s controversy over the purchase of the Doncaster Rovers Football Club, which featured in the Moriarty Tribunal.
In 2007, Lowry denied at the Moriarty Tribunal that he ever played any hand, act or part in the purchase of struggling English soccer club Doncaster Rovers, bought by Denis O’Brien’s family in August 1998 for a reported £4.3 million.
The deal was part of the tribunal’s terms of reference as it investigated financial links between O’Brian and Lowry. Lowry’s denial was echoed by O’Brien who said the politician had no involvement in the transaction.
Later, in 2011, the tribunal said it did not uncover a clear link between O’Brien, Lowry and the Doncaster deal. However, its final report said it was satisfied the project intended some sort of payment to, or the conferral of a “pecuniary advantage on, Mr Lowry by Mr Denis O’Brien”.
The Moriarty Tribunal also found that Lowry had an “insidious and pervasive influence” on the bidding process for the second mobile phone licence in Ireland when he was a minister in the 1990s.
The licence was granted to the Denis O’Brien-owned Esat Telecom in 1995. The tribunal found that O’Brien made or facilitated payments of hundreds of thousands of sterling to Lowry. Lowry and O’Brien have both rejected the findings.
The Doncaster issue resurfaced today during the nominations for Taoiseach in the Dáil today.
Doherty began by repeating words spoken by Martin in 2011, where he called on Lowry to resign his seat.
Referencing the current row over Dáil speaking time, Doherty went on to state:
“I wonder if he will use that speaking time to come clean, to set the record straight about his involvement in the Doncaster deal, the purchase of Doncaster Football Club funded by Dennis O’Brien, a deal that the deputy swore that he had no part of and was not to benefit from, which was completely and utterly false.
“So let me put some new information on the house. Deputy Lowry had 57 meetings in relation to the Doncaster deal, including here in the Houses of the Oireachtas with the organisers of the project and representatives of sport. He also had meetings in the boardroom of Doncaster football club itself.
“So will he explain also, in September and October of 2001, why his accountant and his advisor paid the person putting the Doncaster deal together two bank drafts of £32,500 and £25,000 for his team. And when he’s doing that, maybe he’ll explain why these payments came from an account in Gibraltar, and where did they originate from? These payments were never disclosed to the [Moriarty] tribunal.
“Will he use the government’s time to explain to this House and the public why he on the 15 March 2001 met with other key individuals in relation to this deal in Dublin. The outcome of the meeting was the creation of a false narrative and fake new documents, fake documents that were given to the tribunal.
“Maybe he could explain why he, it is claimed, and two others that were central to these deals, met in a rural farm on August 2002 to burn the original document pertaining to these deals.
“He did so to make sure that the truth would never see the light of day. The information that I’m telling you now comes directly from one of the men present,” Doherty said in the Dáil.
He went on to speak about how Martin asked former Taoiseach Enda Kenny to reopen the investigation into Michael Lowry in 2013, when the Fianna Fáil leader was in opposition.
“It was because of some information that came from the same individual that has given me this information. So can I ask you, how do you square the circle? Back then, you wanted Michael Lowry investigated. Now you want him in the bosom of government.
“Now you allow him to play the part of king maker. Now you hand them substantial influence over this government. So maybe next time when you sit down with Michael Lowry to discuss your grubby government deal, you ask him: Did he burn the documents? Where did the Gibraltar payments come from up creating false documents?. And why did he lie to the tribunal,” Doherty concluded.
Martin has previously raised the issue of the Doncaster deal in the Dáil.
In 2013, the now-Taoiseach raised the matter during Leaders’ Questions. At the time, Enda Kenny was Taoiseach.
Martin spoke about an article in the Sunday Independent, telling the Dáil at the time there was a transcript of a conversation published involving Lowry, calling it “dramatic and startling”.
“What concerns me most, as one of many Members in this House who set up the Moriarty tribunal, is whether the tribunal was continually undermined in its efforts to get to the full truth of the issues it was investigating,” Martin told the Dáil on 26 February 2013.
Referring to documentation in 2013, Martin said it detailed approximately 60 meetings attended by Lowry “in connection with the so-called Doncaster deal”.
“Senator Wilson has forwarded that material to the chairman of the tribunal. The Senator understands there are other issues out there relating to this that will come down the tracks and he has undertaken to sending any material he receives directly to the chairman of the tribunal,” he said.
“Taking this material together – the material Senator Wilson received and the transcript of the conversation – one is left with an uneasy feeling that the tribunal was not told the full truth or that groups of people – witnesses – were meeting, telephoning and engaging with each other before giving evidence to the tribunal.
“I suggest that, at a minimum, is both unhealthy and disturbing. Clear contradictions are emerging between what was said to the tribunal and what is now emerging in the various material to which I have referred. These contradictions are very difficult to reconcile,” Martin told Kenny.
Martin said the tribunal was established by the Oireachtas and all members “have a solemn duty and obligation to stand by it”, asking the Taoiseach of the day would he facilitate a re-examination of these issues by the tribunal.
Kenny responded by stating that the report of the Moriarty tribunal had already been completed.
Martin replied that the documentation details over 60 meetings on the Doncaster deal, which involved Lowry.
“I have no intention of reopening the Moriarty tribunal or any other tribunal that has reported to the House,” the then-Taoiseach concluded. “I did not realise that the Deputy seems to be amnesiac in some respects. Claims have been made about the extent and veracity of information and knowledge given to other tribunals. When someone goes before a tribunal, he or she takes an oath to tell the truth. If people have access to information, I suggest they should bring it to the appropriate authorities.”
While Martin said at the time that it was not for the House to judge the documentation, he said there is “enough new material for this House to revisit the issue”, and called for a motion to be brought before the House on that specific issue.
“Does this not concern him? It concerns me,” Martin told the Dáil 12 years ago.
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