DECISION WELCOMED:INDEPENDENT TD for Tipperary North and former minister for communications Michael Lowry has welcomed the Government's decision to send the Moriarty report to the Director of Public Prosecutions and the Garda Commissioner.
He said he had no intention of resigning his Dáil seat despite calls for him to do so. He added that allegations in the report had been “floating about” for 14 years during which time he had been successful in three general elections.
“I am actually pleased that the report is referred to the DPP,” he said. “It’s the normal sequence of events when a report is presented to the Oireachtas that it is forwarded to the DPP and other interested authorities. I welcome the fact that it is forwarded, because there is a huge difference between the evidentiary trail that will be applied by the DPP’s office as well as the burden of proof that is required.”
He said it was grossly unfair that an opinion of one individual can damn as many members of the public service and himself as the tribunal had done in the report.
Mr Lowry was abroad when he heard of the publication and returned to Ireland late on Tuesday night.
Interviewed at a Dublin hotel, he said he was confident that the DPP would not find any grounds on which to prosecute him.
“That is the ultimate test because effectively this Moriarty tribunal has no basis in law and to say the least of it when one considers the time, the energy and the cost involved in this long-running affair, it is absolutely astounding that nobody can take any action on foot of it.
“If there is to be any action arising from the tribunal report, all of the investigations have to recommence again. It makes a mockery of a tribunal process.”
Asked why people should believe him rather than Mr Justice Moriarty, he said that 17 distinguished civil servants of integrity, the membership of the project team in the licensing process and international consultant Michael Andersen had all consistently stated and had given sworn evidence that he did not express a preference for the outcome or do anything to influence the decision that was going to be made by the project team.
Mr Lowry said the report had ignored their evidence and set it aside and he found this to be extraordinary. He insisted there was no evidence to substantiate the findings of Mr Justice Moriarty.
“This is effectively his opinion, it is not an opinion based on fact or evidence. He has formed this opinion and effectively what they have done is put together a threadbare sequence of events and achieved the desired result for themselves,” he added.
Regarding the conversation with Denis O’Brien which features in the report, he said: “I was at the football All-Ireland and I had a chance meeting with Denis O’Brien. He asked me where I was going. I told him I was going for a drink and he asked if he could join me; we did that in Hartigan’s. I think we had two drinks and, yes, he did ask me about my department because he had an issue with it which was totally unrelated to the telephone licence.
“There was no discussion whatsoever [about the licence]. Denis O’Brien has confirmed in his evidence that we never discussed the mobile licence; I never discussed the mobile licence with him.
“We were the only two that were privy to that discussion and Moriarty has decided that, somehow or other, he thinks we did discuss it.”
Commenting on the political reaction to the report, he said Micheál Martin’s and Eamon Gilmore’s call for him to consider his position was simply political posturing.
