Tribunal to decide if #150,000 payment for Lowry 'got stuck'

The money trail: A "train" of financial transactions, which may have been for Michael Lowry's benefit, have apparent connections with persons associated with Esat Digifone, Mr Justice Michael Moriarty has said. He said the tribunal would have to decide whether £150,000 which may have been intended for Mr Lowry, when in office, "got stuck" while on its way to him from Denis O'Brien.

The tribunal will have to decide, he said, whether subsequent transactions, including property transactions in Doncaster, Mansfield and Cheadle, "were intended as a substitution for the payment that got stuck".

Mr Justice Moriarty said there were a number of matters that had been known to various parties concerning money trail issues being investigated by the tribunal, and which had not been brought to its attention.

An initial public offering of shares in Esat Telecom was made in 1997. At the time the company and the shareholders in Esat Digifone held an internal inquiry into a comment allegedly made by Denis O'Brien, to the effect that he had made a payment of £100,000 to Mr Lowry.

In the course of the inquiry, Mr O'Brien was alleged to have said he had contemplated such a payment, but that it "got stuck" with an intermediary.

In fact, sums of £50,000 and £100,000 had been moved from Mr O'Brien's account to an Isle of Man account, and from there to the offshore account of the late David Austin. Mr O'Brien had said this was payment for a house in Spain bought from Mr Austin.

The money was then transferred to an account in the Isle of Man belonging to Mr Lowry. It was returned to Mr Austin on the day the McCracken tribunal was established. Mr Lowry has said it was to have been a loan from Mr Austin.The chairman said the tribunal also looked at the transfer of shares to Mr Austin worth $300,000 and whether there was any connection with Mr Lowry.

He said that the tribunal was also examining whether some letters relating to the Cheadle and Mansfield transactions, may have been changed.

It was also looking at a transaction in Doncaster which had been said by Mr O'Brien to be his. The Irish Times, he said, had published a report in January 2003 of a letter linking the transaction to Mr Lowry, and the tribunal had since learned that the existence of this letter was known to Mr O'Brien since 2002 at least.