Overseas investments:Former TD Liam Lawlor spent an increasing amount of time on property ventures in the Czech Republic in recent years.
Two years ago, Mr Lawlor told The Irish Times he had to try to keep up with correspondence with the Mahon tribunal while running his business affairs in Prague. His involvement in Prague real estate goes back to the early 1990s, when he and the late Conor McElliot were involved in a consultancy business.
In 1995 Mr Lawlor was listed as a member of the supervisory board of a company registered in Prague called The Irish Consortium. Mr Lawlor was described as having a 33 per cent shareholding in the company, which was described as being involved in real estate ventures.
Mr Lawlor was also connected with a second Czech company, Zatecka 14 SRO. The extent of his dealings in the country never became clear.
In December 2000, the Flood (now Mahon) tribunal was told that Mr Lawlor had drawn two loans, for a total of £600,000, from the Czech Republic and used the funds to pay bank debts here. The loans had been drawn down in the mid and late 1990s.
He said the money came from an "associate partner" of his in Prague, Longwater Investments, a company with which he had a joint venture arrangement.
He said he had "seven or eight" property ventures on the go and that documents relating to the loan could be found in a Prague apartment, but this did not turn out to be the case. The tribunal subsequently heard that the money had come originally from land deals in Dublin.
Mr Lawlor at one stage raised an invoice for £38,000 against former Government press officer Frank Dunlop for "consultancy fees", after Mr Lawlor had introduced Mr Dunlop to the then Czech minister for trade and industry, Vladimir Dlouhy.
Mr Dlouhy resigned in 1997 over a corruption scandal.
On another occasion, Mr Lawlor told the tribunal he was involved in property projects in the Czech Republic with the late Phil Monahan and architect Ambrose Kelly. Mr Kelly's company, Ambrose Kelly International (Eastern Europe) Ltd, provided some funding to The Irish Consortium, Mr Lawlor said.
Contacted yesterday, Mr Kelly said he did not want to discuss Mr Lawlor's business affairs in the Czech Republic. Mr Dunlop is among the shareholders in Ambrose Kelly International, according to its latest accounts.
