Analysis: Faked invoices, large payments and unexplained bank accounts - Liam Lawlor is in trouble again following more revelations in the High Court, writes Paul Cullen.
In his younger days Liam Lawlor used to run marathons, but these days only his memory does the jogging. Once again yesterday, the West Dublin TD was being reminded of accounts he held but failed to disclose, payments that slipped his mind and business relationships that faded from memory.
Once again, there was evidence of massive payments from developers, the faking of invoices to receive these payments and myriad bank transactions to, from and between offshore banks.
This was the fourth time the tribunal has put the squeeze on Mr Lawlor and yet again the process has yielded new information. As before, there were contradictions in his version of events, repeated denials that he had failed to co-operate with the Flood tribunal and confident promises he can rebut accusations made against him.
Mr Lawlor was again present to hear the minutiae of his personal finances teased out in public, having been ordered to come to the court by Mr Justice Smyth.
The most startling revelation was Mr Lawlor's receipt of £51,200 from Mr Seán Mulryan, a Co Roscommon builder with massive property interests in Britain and Ireland, and/or Ballymore Properties. Mr Mulryan's last appearance in the limelight was at the Galway Races, when he led the crowd in a public rendition of The West's Awake after his horse won the Galway Plate.
Some £1,200 of the money Mr Lawlor received was paid as a political contribution to Fianna Fáil, but what about the rest?
In his affidavits, he variously describes the two sums of £20,000 and one of £10,000 as political donations and later, as consultancy payments. What we do know is that he issued fabricated invoices for the payments. Two were issued in the name of Long Associates, a name he says he "chose at random", and the third bore the name of King and Company, an estate agency in Prague.
He concocted further invoices, this time in the name of Comex Trading Corporation, after receiving £12,500 from Christopher Jones of the Jones Group. This was for "advice received" in relation to the rezoning of land at Ballycullen, Co Dublin.
Frank Dunlop has already identified Christopher Jones and his late brother Gerry as the landowners who gave him £17,500 for distribution to county councillors in the early 1990s. At the time, the two brothers were trying to get their 77-acre farm rezoned.
Mr Lawlor obtained the headed notepaper for Comex from an associate, Mr Michael Quinn, who also furnished him with notepaper for Industrial Consultant Associates.
It was already known that he used this company to invoice National Toll Roads after receiving £74,000 from its chairman, Mr Tom Roche snr.
There was clear evidence that Mr Lawlor's relationships with others were not as he had described them. He told the tribunal in 2000 that the Liechtenstein accounts were not in his name, yet they clearly are. He gave the impression that Mr Nicholas Morgan, a lawyer from the Channel Islands, controlled these accounts, when it is now clear that Mr Morgan acted on Mr Lawlor's instructions.
Even Mr Lawlor's relations with his son Niall are not as simple as was first assumed. In the early 1990s, when the banks were on the politician's heels, his son operated a number of accounts on his behalf. The TD managed to forget about this - and the £322,000 contained in the accounts - until reminded by his son recently. In addition, lodgments have been made into six US bank accounts operated by Niall, for which no details have been provided to the tribunal.
Finally, the court heard yesterday that the solicitor Mr John Caldwell transferred £350,000 to Mr Lawlor in 1995. A fortnight later, Mr Lawlor lodged a similar amount in his bank in Liechtenstein. Shortly after, £157,000 of this was withdrawn to clear his debts with the banks in Ireland.
