Land deals in England likely to haunt Lowry and O'Brien for years to come

BACKGROUND:One can only imagine the field day the Moriarty tribunal would have had with the fresh information that emerged concerning the finances of Independent TD Michael Lowry.

The Tipperary TD’s refrigeration company, Garuda Ltd, has been investigated by an authorised officer, the Revenue, and in part at least, by two tribunals.

The company’s 2002 accounts showed a pretax loss of €140,905 and a gross profit of €422,891. A note to the accounts said that in May 2002, the Revenue Commissioners had raised assessments against it which the company had appealed.

Yesterday The Irish Times contacted Mr Lowry after a source revealed a £248,624 sterling payment made to an Isle of Man trust in 2002, on Lowry’s behalf, had come from Finnish company Norpe OY. The trust holds assets for the family of Northern Ireland land agent Kevin Phelan.

In response, Mr Lowry issued a short statement saying the money was commission due to his Thurles company from Norpe.

In a tape of a 2004 telephone conversation between Lowry and Phelan, published last week by the Sunday Independent, Lowry said the payment was linked to a company called Vineacre and a land deal in Wigan. In response, Phelan said he had treated the payment as being related to a deal in Doncaster.

Lowry told the Moriarty tribunal another payment made to Phelan in 2002, for £65,000, was also related to Wigan. He never told the tribunal about the Norpe payment.

As well as the Wigan deal in the early 2000s, Lowry was involved in property deals in Cheadle and Mansfield in the late 1990s. Despite his protestations to the contrary, and those of businessman Denis O’Brien, the Moriarty tribunal decided he was also at one stage involved in a 1998 deal in Doncaster.

All this at a time when his political career was looking precarious, his legal bills were escalating and he was facing the possibility of a massive tax bill and even jail. (He and his company eventually made a €1.4 million settlement.)

Yet here he was making a payment for a £250,000 from a loss-making refrigeration company, to pay off a land scout who had been involved in a deal in Wigan which, as far as we know, turned out badly.

The Moriarty tribunal decided the Cheadle and Mansfield deals were efforts by O’Brien to confer financial benefits on Lowry. In the event they, and the Doncaster deal, proved to be unprofitable. The fallout shows all the signs of following Lowry, and O’Brien, for years yet.