MATT COOPER

‘THIS WAS A TRUMPIAN DISPLAY’

FOUR years ago the Tipperary senior hurling team, preparing to play in that year’s All-Ireland final, posed for a group photograph with a difference. The team didn’t wear the famous blue and yellow jerseys but instead donned stylish new dark blue suits, accompanied by light blue shirts, yellow ties and brown shoes. In their midst, wearing a blue jacket and jeans, and not wearing a tie, stood a man who was not a hurler, the smiling individual who ‘cosponsored’ the cost of the expensive clobber: Micheal Lowry, Independent TD for the county.

In normal circumstances it would have been quite the clever local political coup, Lowry burnishing his GAA credentials and emphasising his generosity too. But the timing was significant. Lowry was facing trial locally in relation to the tax offences from which he was convicted in Dublin yesterday. The State had applied, successfully as it would subsequently turn out, to have the trial moved to Dublin, on the basis that a jury in Tipperary would likely be biased in his favour.

I wanted to write a piece at the time, pointing out that the sponsorship of the county hurling team, just weeks ahead of a criminal trial, was a pretty blatant effort to curry favour locally. Solicitors agreed with my assessment but said that point could not be published for fearing of prejudicing the forthcoming trial. I was aware that other newspapers had come to the same conclusion. Victory for Lowry: he got his publicity in advance of the trial and the media could not highlight the apparent cynicism of it.

As it happened, the State was successful in having the trial moved, although it was delayed. There was a further delay in early June this year when a key Revenue Commissioners witness was not available, but attention was drawn to Lowry’s decision to post an attack against the Revenue on his Facebook page, something that no sensible defendant would do in advance of a trial. But Lowry has a Trump-like tendency to try to rewrite the rules and to interpret things to his own benefit.

That’s not to suggest that he wouldn’t have been worried about the possibility of losing the trial – or of being sentenced to a term in prison. Lowry was correct, probably, to fear that a jury in Dublin would be less sympathetic to him outside of his native county, as proven yesterday by the four charges for which he and his company were found guilty (and the failure of the jury to come to a decision on four other charges they were considering).

It should not be forgotten that this jury decided to convict despite comments from the presiding judge that could have been interpreted as giving them every opportunity to acquit. Judge Martin Nolan told the jury that it had to be satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that Lowry knew the money in dispute was not included in the company accounts and tax computations. The judge told the jurors that they had to be satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that Lowry had not told the truth, and that they had to acquit if they found his explanation to be reasonably believable.

And yet, the jury decided against Lowry. That was damning and should be remembered in assessing Lowry’s after-court celebrations yesterday.

Unfortunate

If Lowry might consider himself unfortunate in the geography of the jury, he can have no complaints about the fairness of his trial. Anyone who has followed Lowry’s career over the last 25 years would have been baffled by Judge Martin Nolan’s contention that Lowry is a ‘conscientious tax payer’. His citing of the remortgaging of the family home to cover a €1.4million tax bill in the late 1990s ignored the incredible circumstances of how that tax bill came about, the relationship with Ben Dunne, and his failure to make proper declarations when availing of a tax amnesty in 1993.

Lowry was very lucky that Nolan, in accepting that the politician had no previous convictions, could not make reference to the adverse findings of the Moriarty Tribunal, which said that, as minister during the time of the 1996 competition to award a lucrative mobile phone company licence, he had held at least two meetings with one of the bidders, Denis O’Brien, and had ‘imparted substantive information to Mr O’Brien of significant value and assistance to him in securing the licence’. The judge, in deciding on his punishment, called Lowry a good employer and a very good public representative.

‘The proof of the pudding is in the eating. He has been re-elected,’ the judge said, in what some people might interpret as a damning indictment of some voters in Tipperary.

Lowry’s Trumpian tendencies were very much encouraged by this reference from Judge Nolan, leading him to hail a ‘fantastic result’. Listening to Lowry afterwards it was almost as if the criminal convictions for delivering an incorrect corporation tax return and failing to keep proper sets of accounts were irrelevant to him, as long as he had not been sent to prison.

‘I came into this building a free man and I leave this building a free man,’ Lowry told reporters outside the court, as he attempted to distort reality.

‘I’m thrilled for my family, my relatives, for my staff and for the people of Tipperary who have been so loyal and steadfast in their support for me during 22 years of absolute turmoil. So for me today is the beginning of the end.’

A Trumpian display would not be complete without a volley of victimhood and Lowry certainly served that up yesterday. ‘It has been a very traumatic time for me, I’ve been pilloried, I’ve been vilified, at times it was humiliating but this, today, is the culmination of 22 years of investigation, of inquiries. I’ve had six different investigations and inquiries. It has been non-stop for 22 years, so I now look forward to getting back to my people in Tipperary and to enjoy the fact that I’m no longer under investigation and that the end has arrived.

‘There were times that I thought that it would never come to a conclusion. And to those that have been writing about me and speculating about me – I think you have to acknowledge that today for me personally is a huge day in my life.

‘Nobody understands unless you’re in the position, if you’re being harassed, chased and hounded by various institutions of the State, it’s only when you’re in that position and, fortunately, I had the strength, courage and conviction and the reason I had was very simple – I knew in my heart and in my head that I didn’t do the kind of wrongness that was being portrayed.’

To which it can only be said: he was convicted. He brought everything upon himself through his own actions and deceptions. Those are the words of a man that can be excused or understood only if coming from someone who has been found innocent of the charges against him. No doubt back home in the alternative reality of Tipperary last night he will have found plenty of people to celebrate with him as if he is innocent.

Which is not the case with the guilty Michael Lowry.