CONSCIENTIOUS TAXPAYER?
Michael Lowry found GUILTY of tax offences but judge praises him for taxes he DID pay... while millionaire TD says he’s ‘thrilled’
MICHAEL Lowry was found guilty of tax offences yesterday – and then, in an extraordinary turn of events, the judge described the millionaire TD as a ‘conscientious taxpayer’.
Ex-minister Lowry was previously described by the Moriarty Tribunal into payments to politicians as ‘profoundly corrupt’. And yesterday a jury found him guilty of filing incorrect taxes on €372,000 he held in the Isle of Man. But when the time came for Judge Martin Nolan to sentence the guilty TD, he said: ‘I think I can infer Mr Lowry is a conscientious taxpayer… It was never the intention of Mr Lowry to evade tax.’
He then added: ‘I’m not sure what his motivation was, but I’ve come to that conclusion.’
The judge went on to link his decision
to Lowry’s popularity with voters, he added: ‘The proof of the pudding is he’s been re-elected on many occasions.’
Judge Martin followed this with a comment about Henry Oliver, the tax inspector who was responsible for bringing the Lowry case forward for criminal investigation. The judge said: ‘I would not like to fall on the wrong side of Mr Oliver.’
The tax inspector had told the jury he had looked into the €372,000 payment in August 2013 and assessed it as a salary earned by Lowry from a Finnish refrigeration company.
He said Lowry owed income tax on the figure and that his company Garuda owed PAYE and PRSI on the sum. He said the total owed to Revenue, including penalties and fine, was €1.1million.
Outside the court after the case a delighted Lowry said: ‘What more could I ask for?’
Judge Nolan also lauded Lowry, saying he previously ‘put his hand in his pocket’ to settle a separate €1.4million tax bill dating back to 1997.
The TD made that settlement in 2005 and the figure included hundreds of thousands of euro in penalty and interest after his tax affairs were disclosed by the McCracken tribunal, which was set up in February 1997 to investigate reports of secret payments by businessman Ben Dunne to former taoiseach, Charles Haughey and former cabinet minister Lowry.
This report found that Haughey had given untrue evidence under oath and that Lowry was knowingly assisted by Dunne in evading tax.
The McCracken tribunal findings led to the more extensive Moriarty Tribunal, officially called the Tribunal of Inquiry into certain payments to politicians and related matters. The Moriarty Tribunal described Lowry as ‘profoundly corrupt to a degree that was nothing short of breath-taking’.
Nevertheless, Judge Nolan accepted that the politician had no previous convictions, was a good employer and a very good public representative.
Judge Nolan yesterday fined him €15,000 and his refrigeration company €10,000, in a case that cost the state at least €100,000 to take to trial.
Passing sentence, the judge said he had to take into account the length of time the charges have been hanging over Lowry and the fact that he’d engaged ‘a substantial legal team to defend his interests of himself and Garuda.’
‘I’m sure Mr Lowry will find this isn’t a cheap exercise,’ the judge added. Outside the court, Lowry – who was last month was named Ireland’s richest TD by a Sunday newspaper as he is reportedly worth €6.4million – said: ‘Those of you who’ve been writing about me and speculating about me, I think you have to acknowledge today that today is, for me personally, a huge day of my life.
‘Nobody understands unless you’re in the position, if you’ve been harassed, chased and hounded by various institutions of the State.’
He said that his case ‘should
‘What more could I ask for?’
never have been here in Dublin... it was a technical problem. As a technical problem, it should have been dealt with at a local district level. That has been proven to be true.’
The former Fine Gael communications minister appeared to repeatedly mix up the Dublin Circuit Criminal Court, where he was tried, with the non-jury Special Criminal Court, which mostly tries IRA cases.
‘This is a Special Criminal Court and if you know the type of cases that are heard and dealt with in this court... What business had they bringing me here to the Special Criminal Court in Dublin? None. None. And that has been proven,’ he said.
The 65-year-old celebrated his lenient sentence with a quick drink in a hotel near Dublin’s Criminal Courts of Justice, before heading back to his native Tipperary.
He’s said to own about 11 acres in Gortnahoo, Co. Tipperary, and his countryside mansion boasts a walled garden that was remade in recent years as a ‘mini-Versailles’.
While issuing sentence, Judge Nolan told the court that the maximum sentence available to the court was a five-year term but said he didn’t think a custodial sentence was ‘appropriate’ in the case. Fining Lowry €15,000 personally and Garuda €10,000, he also disqualified him from acting as a director of the company for three years.
‘He seems to have rescued his company. If he had not put a substantial cash infusion into the company it would not be operating at present,” Judge Nolan said.
He was referring to evidence that Lowry had re-mortgaged his home to pay the €1.4million tax bill, the sum that only came to light because of the McCracken tribunal.
Asked by the Irish Daily Mail if he was happy with the outcome, Lowry said: ‘Brilliant,’ before adding: ‘I came in a free man and I’m leaving a free man, and I don’t have to tell you I’m pleased with that.’
During a two-hour break in proceedings after he was convicted, Lowry looked relaxed as he paced up and down the corridor on the first floor of the courts complex, constantly chatting on his phone and peering over balcony edges.
Defence barrister Michael O’Higgins SC, had pleaded that prosecutors had used a ‘sledgehammer to take a nut’.
Comment – Page 12 paul.cafrfrey@dailymail.ie