Lowry gets his €2.8m tribunal costs
MICHAEL LOWRY has secured his legal costs from the Moriarty tribunal, more than 26 years after the inquiry into the awarding of the Esat phone licence to Denis O’Brien was established.
In a statement to the media, the former Fine Gael minister said: ‘I am pleased to state that the longrunning issue in relation to the payment of costs amounting to €2,869,338.09 arising from representation on my behalf before the Moriarty tribunal, has finally been resolved. This tribunal was established in September 1997 – 26 years ago.’
The TD noted the settlement has been finally reached five years after he successfully appealed to the Court of Appeal and overturned the original decision of the tribunal in respect of costs, in March 2018.
He added: ‘Although the delay in finalising this issue was inexcusable, unreasonable and unfair, I am pleased with the final resolution and the discharge of the costs to those who represented me before the tribunal.
‘I will not be making any further statement or comments on this subject,’ he added.
The tribunal sat for the first time on October 31, 1997, and issued its final report 14 years later, having sat in public for 286 days. The final cost of the inquiry is expected to be more than €150m.
In 2011, the Moriarty tribunal found that Lowry had an ‘insidious and pervasive influence’ on the bidding process for the second mobile phone licence in Ireland when he was Fine Gael minister for communications in the 1990s.
The licence was granted to the Denis O’Brien-owned firm, Esat Telecom, in 1995.
The tribunal found that Mr O’Brien made or facilitated payments of hundreds of thousands pounds sterling to Mr Lowry, now an Independent TD.
Both Mr O’Brien and Mr Lowry denied the findings.