Templemore golf club, as Lowry got involved and fears of exposure as Lowry got involved

TD’s letter to the Minister sparked Garda fears of public scrutiny and a backlash

A LETTER from Independent TD Michael Lowry to Frances Fitzgerald regarding a ‘notice to quit’ served to Templemore Golf Club provoked consternation among top civil servants in the Justice Department, as well as senior officers at Garda headquarters.

The revelation is in a number of places in the dossier submitted to the Public Accounts Committee by the Garda Executive Director of Human Resources John Barrett this week.

It references a detailed note of his meeting with the Garda Commissioner about financial irregularities at the Garda College in Templemore. A meeting he claims lasted more than two hours but Nóirín O’ Sullivan insists was ‘very brief’.

According to the minutes taken by Mr Barrett of that meeting on July 27, 2015, with the Commissioner – and then-acting Deputy Commissioner John Twomey, and then-chief administration officer Cyril Dunne – the letter from Mr Lowry to Frances Fitzgerald was deemed to be a ‘complicating’ factor.

Mr Barrett’s written notes are central to the PAC’s investigation into financial irregularities at the Garda College because they put on the record when the beleaguered Commissioner first learned of the serious issues in Templemore.

The Garda College established Sports Field Company Limited – which leased an OPW-owned parcel of land that made up part of Templemore Golf Club.

The minutes state: ‘You [Cyril Dunne] raised the issues arising from the Sports Field Co. Ltd, the Templemore Golf Club, in the context of the Minister getting a letter from Michael Lowry TD. Your introduction was designed to present additional context to the letter from HOLA [Head of Legal Affairs Ken Ruane] and to give an update to the Commissioner and Acting Deputy Commissioners.’

It continues: ‘We spent a period of the meeting discussing the Sports Field Co. and comfort was taken from the fact that the land owned was purchased before the 2005 Act became law. The appointment of Dublin-based solicitors to act for the Sports Field Co. was seen as proactive and the notice to quit was noted as having been served.

‘The local political dimension was discussed and the letter to the minister from Michael Lowry TD was seen as a complicating factor.’ Asked this weekend about the letter, Mr Lowry told the Irish Mail on Sunday he’d written to the minister once, made representations to her twice and raised the matter in the Dáil, on behalf his constituents.

However, he insisted he was totally unaware of the financial irregularities at the College when he wrote to the Justice Minister.

Templemore Golf Club is adjacent to the Garda College and was set up in 1971 by gardaí. It was jointly run by gardaí and civilians until 1980 when gardaí assumed full control until the turn of this century.

Some of the 28-acre course was bought with profits from the Garda College restaurant based and on a number of occasions since 2015 Mr Barrett has queried whether the club may claim ‘adverse possession’ of the property bought with funds that should have been returned to the taxpayer.

Mr Lowry was not the only local TD to contact the minister on the issue. Fine Gael’s Noel Coonan also raised it with Ms Fitzgerald.

But it was Mr Lowry’s call that prompted the minister’s senior aide Eugene Banks to call Mr Barrett on June 23, 2015.

A note of a meeting between Mr Barrett and then-chief administrative officer Cyril Dunne in the dos-

sier reads: ‘My telephone rang and it was Mr Eugene Banks from the Department of J & E. With Cyril’s consent I took the call and we both spoke with him on speaker. Ironically, he advised us that he was calling about a letter which the Minister had received from Mr Michael Lowry concerning Templemore Golf Club and matter relating the efforts by AGS [An Garda Síochána] to have the Golf Club removed for the non-payment of rent. Eugene Banks explained that the Minister would be writing to us seeking a comprehensive update on this entire matter in the coming days.’

Mr Banks had also spoken with Mr Barrett a week earlier about Templemore Golf Club and his minutes of that conversation state: ‘He [Eugene Banks] said that he was aware that at some point some funds from the College restaurant had been used to fund the purchase of lands through a limited company and that the Golf Club had leased the lands purchased from the guards and that now there was a dispute of some sort as rent due was not being paid. Noel Coonan TD had alerted the Minister to the dispute in the interests of there being no loss of access to his local constituents in Templemore.’

A Justice Department spokesman said: ‘It would not be appropriate for the department to comment on material which has been provided to the PAC which forms part of its examination of these matters. However, it is already a matter of public record that the department became aware of certain issues in relation to Templemore having received representations from local TDs’ about access to the golf club. He said this was ‘separate’ from the lack of proper financial controls.’