Tribunal challenged to prove findings in court

DUNNE REACTION:BUSINESSMAN BEN Dunne challenged the Moriarty tribunal to prove its findings against him in court after its report described dealings between himself and former minister Michael Lowry as "profoundly corrupt".

Mr Justice Moriarty found that in 1995, Mr Lowry, who was minister for transport, communications and energy, tried to influence the outcome of a rent dispute between State company Telecom Éireann and Mr Dunne, who was its landlord in Marlborough House in Dublin.

Mr Lowry was the minister responsible for Telecom Éireann at the time, and was effectively the building’s tenant. Mr Dunne wanted the rent doubled, which would have doubled the value of the building, earning a profit of between €3 million and €7 million from the taxpayer for his company Bark Island, which bought Marlborough House a year earlier.

Mr Dunne said yesterday he was not a corrupt businessman, and challenged the tribunal and its chairman to prove its finding in court.

“What I am saying to Mr Moriarty is that if you believe what you are saying about Ben Dunne, then you should make sure that Ben Dunne is prosecuted and put behind bars because corrupt people should be in jail.”

Mr Dunne argued the finding was an opinion and not evidence.

He also claimed that the tribunal had ignored medical and pyschiatrist reports showing that his memory of the period was unreliable because he had drug and psychiatric problems at the time.

The dispute over the rent was ongoing when Bark Island bought Marlborough House in 1994. When it went to arbitration, Mr Dunne rang Mr Lowry and asked him to contact auctioneers, Sherry Fitzgerald, as one of its staff, Gordon Gill, was the arbitrator.

Mr Dunne said yesterday that he contacted Mr Lowry simply to “speed up the process” as the politician knew Mark FitzGerald, one of the firm’s partners. He gave the same explanation when the tribunal quizzed him about the Marlborough deal a number of years ago.

Mr Dunne, who ran the Dunnes Stores empire in the 1990s and now owns a chain of gyms, was speaking on RTÉ Radio’s Liveline yesterday afternoon.

Both the Moriarty tribunal and its predecessor, the McCracken tribunal, found that Mr Dunne made political donations to Mr Lowry and to his party, Fine Gael, which is now the senior coalition partner in Government.

Mr Lowry’s company, Garuda, supplied and maintained refrigeration for Dunnes Stores. The department store chain paid for work on the politician’s home in the 1990s in return for work done by Garuda.

The McCracken inquiry subsequently found that this allowed the company to evade some tax liabilities. Both Mr Lowry and his company have since made €1 million-plus settlements with Revenue.

Questioned on the radio about his dealings with Garuda and Mr Lowry yesterday, Mr Dunne said he now had a tax clearance certificate.