Lawlor is granted reprieve in his battle to stay free

Dublin West TD Mr Liam Lawlor has avoided a return to prison until October at the earliest following the Supreme Court's decision to grant a stay of execution pending an appeal.

In a short hearing yesterday, the court ruled that Mr Lawlor had made an "arguable" case for appeal and that if the stay was not granted he would have to serve the seven-day sentence before the appeal was heard.

The TD was due to begin his latest jail term on Wednesday. His decision to appeal contrasts with his acceptance of the first sentence last January when he was also judged to be in contempt of court for his failure to co-operate fully with the Flood tribunal.

In his affidavit to the Supreme Court, he said one of the grounds on which he would appeal this time was because he had been handed exactly the same jail term as in January, despite having sworn "66 further affidavits of discovery, discovering 25,000 pages of documents" in the interim.

This contrasted with his stance in January when, he admitted in the affidavit, "my failure to comply with the Discovery Order was clear and demonstrable, and I had given only minimal co-operation". He had since "come to realise that I had a very wide obligation" to the tribunal. It was therefore "excessive and unreasonable" that he should get the same sentence on this occasion.

Mr Lawlor said his latest noncompliance with the discovery order was a "technical" one, and effectively concerned "two documents which it is contended I gave or faxed to Mr [Larry] Goodman". The documents relate to the 1987 purchase of lands at Coolamber, near Mr Lawlor's home in Lucan, Co Dublin.

Granting a stay, Ms Justice Denham said the documentation involved was "voluminous" and it would be improper for the Supreme Court to express a view on the outcome of the appeal. But Mr Lawlor had made an arguable case for such an appeal, which could not be heard before the latest sentence was executed.

"There is then the possible consequence that he will have served a term of imprisonment in circumstances where there is an arguable case that his appeal may succeed."

Mr Lawlor last night welcomed the stay but said he had "no view" on whether his appeal would succeed: "I wouldn't be so presumptuous."

In his statement to the Supreme Court, he stressed that he was not challenging the order made in the High Court last Tuesday that he should file a supplemental affidavit of discovery by September 7th but he said the tribunal had given "no fair warning" of its dissatisfaction with a list of documentation he furnished it in May.

Subsequent affidavits by the tribunal had made "serious allegations" against him and, while the matters involved were "complicated and bore investigation", he had explained his involvement.