IT MAY not have the impact and clarity of the McCracken report that found the late Charles Haughey to be a “kept man” of Irish business, but the findings of the Moriarty tribunal are no less damning: Michael Lowry received payments of up to half a million pounds from businessman Denis O’Brien in circumstances that suggested a linkage with his position as minister for transport, energy and communications and the granting of a mobile phone licence.
When point-blank denials, the falsification of documents, off-shore accounts and legal challenges threaten to derail official investigations, the old method of “following the money trail” is the best approach. That exercise has helped to expose the corrupt underbelly of Irish politics. A trawl through their accounts damaged or destroyed the reputations of Mr Haughey and Mr Lowry; to be followed by Ray Burke and Liam Lawlor. Proving political corruption “beyond a reasonable doubt” in a criminal court is nearly impossible. So tribunals of inquiry are asked to make findings “on the balance of probability”, a commonsense approach. If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck.
It is no surprise that Mr Lowry and Mr O’Brien have challenged the findings of Mr Justice Moriarty. They have been engaged in a public war of attrition for years. Mr Lowry held the report to be factually wrong, misleading and an abuse of power while Mr O’Brien maintained he had never made any payment to Mr Lowry and suggested the judiciary should investigate the tribunal chairman and its legal team. Such diversionary tactics should be ignored.
The two-volume report recalls that, had Mr Haughey not been unwell in 1999 and delayed matters, the tribunal would have concluded there was no reason to investigate the relationship between Mr O’Brien and Mr Lowry. Important information, it says, was withheld. That material only became available in 2001 and in 2009 after “false and contrived documentation” had been exposed. Payments and benefits were conveyed to Mr Lowry by persons intimately associated with Mr O’Brien. This gave rise to a reasonable inference that they were connected with his position as minister. A payment of £147,000 was made to Lowry within months of the Esat contract being signed. Payments and benefits amounting to £342,000 followed.
This tribunal was established 14 years ago to investigate the financial affairs of Mr Haughey and Mr Lowry. Its inquiries then extended to Mr O’Brien. Mr Justice Moriarty explains that delays were largely due to legal challenges and refusals to co-operate by those involved. He names seven individuals – including Mr O’Brien and Mr Lowry – who engaged in “persistent and active concealment” and suggests their behaviour warrants future action. However, such action cannot disguise the snail’s-pace progress that has caused the public to become disillusioned with tribunals because of legal costs. That is a worrying development. An effective and speedy method must be available to investigate allegations of corruption.