This may be the season of forgiveness and charity but it is still difficult to feel a great measure of sympathy for the former Minister for Transport, Energy and Communications, Mr Lowry, after his personal statement to the Dail yesterday. Mr Lowry may seek to obfuscate matters with references to complex taxi and financial matters. But the kernel of the issue is clear. Mr Lowry was the victim of his own hubris and his own poor political judgment. Two years ago he was happy to accept one of the great offices of State. But on the basis of his statement yesterday, we now know that this was a man who liked to adopt what might charitably be described as an a la carte approach to the taxation, planning and company laws.
The facts of the Lowry affair as outlined yesterday, will confirm the worst suspicions of the honest taxpayer that for some people, their view of the tax regime is, well, different. Whereas the PAYE sector is liable for a tax rate of 48 per cent - even on modest incomes - Mr Lowry, who availed himself of the last tax amnesty, preferred to operate to his own rules. He has still to pay any tax in relation to the £200,000-plus extension paid for by Dunnes Stores for services rendered; he has not paid any additional property tax since the extension was built and he did not bother to apply for planning permission for it in the first instance.
It is worth recalling that this is the same man who, as Minister, liked to style himself as the guardian of the high moral ground and the sole bulwark against corruption and dirty-dealing in the semi-states. Small wonder that the public is cynical about, and increasingly disaffected from the political system.
And through it all, yesterday, Mr Lowry continued to insist that he is guilty of no impropriety as he sought some kind of boundary between his public and his business life. Mr Lowry's view - and that of many of his party colleagues - still appears to be that the former Minister was the hapless victim of an unfortunate GUBU-like chain of events.
There was a time when Fine Gael stood for something better than this; a time when there was a clear commitment to the highest standards in public life and a time when there was a firm, unbending demarcation line between the world of business and the wider public good. There is no doubt that those principles are still held dear by the great majority of the party. The hope must be that Fine Gael will learn the clear lessons of the Lowry affair. Last night's statement by the Taoiseach, Mr Bruton, offering little in the way of comfort for Mr Lowry, represents a first, tentative step in the right direction. There can be no recurrence of a situation in which the holder of one of the most commercially sensitive ministries is himself in thrall to private commercial interests. Mr Lowry's livelihood, the very roof over his head - literally - have been in the pocket of Dunnes Stores.
It is, of course, important to point out that Mr Lowry's statement yesterday represents his version of events. It is possible that Mr Ben Dunne, whose unorthodox method of doing business was detailed by the former Minister, may have his own interpretation of what happened. On the face of it, Mr Dunne has much to explain; cash payments to employees of Mr Lowry's company and what appears to have been an elaborate contra-deal involving Mr Lowry's extension and building work at the ILAC shopping centre in Dublin. The fact that Mr Lowry's building costs were buried in those of the ILAC project is mysterious, to say the least. It is important to know if this is a widespread characteristic of doing business in Ireland. If Dunnes did it for Michael Lowry is it a device which is likely to be unknown elsewhere? It is to be hoped, in the wider public interest, that Mr Dunne can be cajoled out of his customary silence on such matters.