Tribunal found undeclared payments to Lowry

The former Fine Gael Minister Mr Michael Lowry availed of the 1993 tax amnesty but did not make a full and complete disclosure. He had been a TD since 1987 and was chairman of the parliamentary party of Fine Gael in 1993.

The performance of the Revenue in assessing Mr Lowry for tax is to be examined by the Moriarty tribunal and this will involve details of the 1993 amnesty being considered. Persons who availed of the amnesty were issued with certificates which prevented the Revenue examining their tax affairs in the period prior to April 1991.

However, the McCracken tribunal in 1997, which investigated payments to politicians from Dunnes Stores, uncovered a series of payments from Dunnes to Mr Lowry which had not been declared to the Revenue. In relation to quite a number of these payments, Mr Lowry and Mr Ben Dunne went to elaborate lengths to hide the payments from the Revenue.

According to the McCracken report, Dunnes Stores spent £395,107 in 1992 on Mr Lowry's house in Co Tipperary and treated the expenditure in its books as work on the Ilac Centre in Dublin. Between October 1990 and May 1992, four sums amounting to £155,000 were paid into bank accounts on the Isle of Man for Mr Lowry. The method of payment was designed to assist Mr Lowry to evade tax. The same is true of £34,000 sterling lodged in AIB Jersey, Mr Justice McCracken said.

Mr Justice McCracken reported: "It is an appalling situation that a government minister and chairman of a parliamentary party can be seen to be consistently benefitting from the black economy from shortly after the time he was first elected to Dail Eireann. If such a person can behave in this way without serious sanctions being imposed, it becomes very difficult to condemn others who similarly flout the law."

Mr Lowry is known to fear that the Revenue hopes to punish him severely, perhaps even to the extent of seeking to have him imprisoned, to show it is serious in its determination to combat tax evasion no matter who the guilty party is.