A file containing sensitive tribunal documents and details of Mr Michael Lowry's financial transactions went missing during Tuesday's sitting, Mr Justice Moriarty has heard.
The file, which belongs to Mr Lowry's accountant, Mr Denis O'Connor, was described by Mr Justice Moriarty as "a particularly sensitive and confidential document". The file contained both tribunal documentation and a "considerable number" of Mr O'Connor's working papers.
When the accountant took the witness stand on Tuesday morning, he left the file on a table in the room in which the tribunal is sitting. When he went to retrieve his papers during lunch-hour, "they were no longer there" and could not be found despite "considerable searches for them", according to counsel for Mr Lowry, Mr Donal O'Donnell SC.
Mr Justice Moriarty said he very much hoped "the matter admits of an innocent explanation". "Should this document have strayed into the wrong hands innocently, or indeed in any other connotation, it should be regarded as a particularly sensitive and confidential document, both from the standpoint of Mr Lowry and Mr O'Connor and from the standpoint of this tribunal, and should be treated accordingly", Mr Justice Moriarty concluded.
