Former Fianna Fáil TD Mr Liam Lawlor faces further questions at the planning tribunal today about more than €1.4 million in proceeds from Irish land deals he transferred to offshore bank accounts.
With tribunal lawyers claiming yesterday that millions of pounds that passed through his bank accounts remain unaccounted for, the threat of a further term in jail is moving ever closer for Mr Lawlor.
The tribunal, now chaired by Judge Alan Mahon, who has replaced Mr Justice Flood, has already warned the politician in correspondence that he could be facing legal proceedings for non-co-operation, it emerged during evidence. He has already been jailed on three separate occasions for a total of six weeks.
Mr Lawlor's record of compliance had been "lamentable" and had seriously delayed the work of the tribunal, Mr Des O'Neill SC, for the tribunal, said. He accused him of conducting a policy of delaying and obfuscating the tribunal in its four-year campaign for full access to his financial and business records.
However, Mr Lawlor, making his first visit to the witness box in Dublin Castle since December 2000, insisted he was co-operating fully with the inquiry. He admitted "inadvertently" failing to obtain some documents from Irish parties that were sought by the tribunal, but said the reason he was unable to get documents from his legal advisers overseas was because they were seeking payment upfront.
Mr O'Neill dismissed this argument, and said the tribunal could only pay costs at the end of its investigations.
Mr Lawlor appeared without legal representation, and said he could not afford to pay a lawyer for his appearances before the tribunal.
Much of yesterday's evidence centred on a number of land deals Mr Lawlor was involved in during the 1980s and 1990s. Two years ago, after selling an acre of land at his home, Somerton, in Lucan, he moved £400,000 to a client account with his lawyers in Gibraltar. But whereas the former TD claimed this money went to discharge a loan he had received, the tribunal has been told it went to the benefit of Mr Lawlor and his wife, Hazel.
The tribunal has also heard a "radically different explanation" for more than £600,000 sterling in Mr Lawlor's accounts in Liechtenstein. Previously, he stated that this money was a loan from a family trust, the Morgan trust, with which he had had dealings.
Now, however, the tribunal has heard that the money comes from two land deals in which Mr Lawlor was involved and is therefore available for his use.
In 1995, in a deal involving the financial lawyer Mr John Caldwell, £350,000 was transferred to the Liechtenstein account. This was Mr Lawlor's share from the purchase and resale of 55 acres of land at Coolamber, near his Lucan home.
In 1997, a further £335,000 was transferred to the account, arising from a land sale in Baldoyle in north Dublin.
Mr O'Neill said information about these money trails emerged in documents that Mr Lawlor had not declared during High Court proceedings against him. However, he said the tribunal was not adopting this explanation, or Mr Lawlor's original explanations, at this stage.
It also emerged that the politician's bank account in Liechtenstein could only be accessed by using a special code-word, "Lucan". Mr O'Neill complained that it took two years for the tribunal to find out about this.
Yesterday's hearing, the first under the new chairman, Judge Mahon, was preceded by tributes to Mr Justice Flood, who resigned as chairman last month.
Judge Mahon said the former chairman had loyally discharged a task that many would have baulked at, in spite of being in his seventies for most of his six-year term. Mr Lawlor, who was repeatedly referred to the High Court by Mr Justice Flood, joined in the congratulations for the departing chairman.
