O'Brien inquiry challenge concludes

The High Court is expected to give judgment next month on a challenge by businessman Denis O'Brien to a decision by the Moriarty tribunal to hold a public inquiry into the 1998 purchase of Doncaster Rovers Football Club.

The proposed public inquiry is to look at the football club purchase by a company controlled by an O'Brien family trust and the purported connection of former minister Michael Lowry to that purchase.

The hearing of the challenge concluded yesterday on its fifth day and Mr Justice Henry Abbott said he hoped to give judgment on August 24th.

The court has heard Doncaster was purchased for some €4.3 million in August 1998 by Westferry Limited, a company controlled by the Wellington Trust, which was established by Mr O'Brien for the benefit of himself and his immediate family.

Both Mr O'Brien and Mr Lowry have stated that Mr Lowry had no involvement in the Doncaster transaction. Mr O'Brien contends that there is no evidence to support the proposed public inquiry.

However, Brian Murray SC, for the tribunal, has told the court that the tribunal had received different versions of events related to the transaction and was justified in proceeding to a public inquiry.

In concluding submissions yesterday, Mr Murray said the information available to the tribunal concerning the Doncaster transaction not only entitled but also obliged the tribunal to hold public hearings into that purchase. He added that the Doncaster transaction was only part of a series of events that the tribunal was investigating, which events appeared to suggest that Mr O'Brien had been the source of monies given directly or indirectly to Mr Lowry. Most of such allegations arose while Mr Lowry was a minister and Mr O'Brien was the chairman of Esat Digifone.

He said the court must examine what evidence meant in the context of a tribunal of inquiry. It did not mean evidence as in a court of law but had a broader interpretation and involved relevant information and material that provided a realistic basis on which to move to public sittings.

Among the material available to the tribunal was a letter dated September 25th, 1998, from an English solicitor, Christopher Vaughan, to Mr Lowry in which Mr Vaughan gave Mr Lowry confidential information about the Doncaster transaction, counsel said.

Mr Vaughan had written that he had not appreciated "your total involvement" in the transaction. Mr Vaughan had also told another English solicitor that Mr Lowry had told Mr Vaughan that he (Mr Lowry) had an involvement. However, this was not what Mr Vaughan had told the tribunal in March 2003.

Other material available to the tribunal was correspondence suggesting that Denis O'Connor, an accountant for Mr Lowry, had become involved in a retention issue that arose from the Doncaster transaction, he said.

Mr O'Connor was also involved in writing a letter concerning fees for Kevin Phelan, a Northern Irish businessman who had introduced the Doncaster venture to Mr O'Brien and who later had a dispute about the fees he was to receive.

Mr Murray said Mr O'Connor had said he was aware "in a general way" about the fees dispute but, counsel said, Mr O'Connor was a conduit for correspondence about that dispute.

Replying for Mr O'Brien, Eoin McGonigal SC said there was no evidence on which to base the decision to move to public hearings. He said the letter of Mr Vaughan's could not be proven and did not constitute evidence. Mr Vaughan had told the tribunal he had been in error in relation to the view expressed in that letter regarding Mr Lowry's "total involvement".