Former Fianna Fáil TD Mr Liam Lawlor has supplied new information about his overseas financial dealings to the Mahon tribunal in an 11th-hour effort to avoid going to jail for a fourth time. Paul Cullen reports.
Mr Lawlor yesterday sent 30 files of documentation to the tribunal offices in Dublin Castle, just hours before a deadline set last week by the chairman, Judge Alan Mahon, expired.
The documents cover all the main areas in which the tribunal was seeking additional information, the politician claimed last night.
"I've done everything now that I can possible do to comply with their requests," he told The Irish Times.
Having made "as full a discovery [of documents\] as is achievable", he was "hopeful" that he would not be sent to prison on this occasion.
Judge Mahon will announce tomorrow whether the tribunal plans to refer Mr Lawlor to the High Court for failing to co- operate with his inquiry. Last week, the chairman ruled that the former TD had failed to co-operate, but gave him one last chance to provide documentation before deciding whether to refer the matter to the courts.
Mr Lawlor said the issue of fees, which he claimed his overseas lawyers were demanding before supplying him with documents sought by the tribunal, was no longer a problem.
He had given his legal advisers a commitment that he would discharge their bills if the tribunal did not pay them.
Judge Mahon last week dismissed Mr Lawlor's argument that he could not afford to pay the lawyers, saying the politician had ample funds at his disposal to do so.
Mr Lawlor travelled to London late last week to take possession of many of the documents sought by the tribunal, and his daughter Ciara flew to Prague to secure the remaining ones.
"My overseas solicitors have now coughed up what they should have provided a long time ago," he said.
The London legal firm of Isadore Goldman had provided him with documents relating to the Morgan family trust, with which Mr Lawlor has had dealings in Jersey.
In addition, Seddons solicitors, which has offices in London and Prague, had released documents relating to the sale of an acre near Mr Lawlor's home in Lucan, as well as his Czech property dealings.
Earlier this month, the tribunal heard evidence that a forged Seddons invoice was used to invoice a £100,000 sterling under-the-counter payment to the politician as part of this transaction.
Mr Lawlor has also obtained a number of outstanding documents from Irish financial institutions, including Ulster Bank and the Irish Nationwide Building Society.
While these institutions had done everything they could to help, he said the "real anomaly" was the long delay in obtaining documents from them. The tribunal had a "genuine criticism" in this regard.
Mr Lawlor has already spent six weeks in jail on three separate occasions for failing to co- operate with the tribunal.