Analysis: This week's proceedings prove the inefficiency, though not the ineffectiveness, of tribunal procedures, writes Paul Cullen
You might think, after this week of further revelations about his unorthodox business practices, that Liam Lawlor was in some difficulty. You might think that his back is against the wall. You might even think that he is about to shout "Surrender!"
You might be wrong.
That's because you don't inhabit the universe of Liam Lawlor; a world where he is right and everyone else is out of step, where the questions are always the same but the answers constantly shifting, and where the winner is the man who slugs it out the longest. And Liam is still standing.
After all, we learned nothing this week that we didn't already know about the politician: that he tells lies, that he falsifies documents, that he piles layer upon layer of offshore secrecy to frustrate all investigation, that he loves his "Liam Lawlor-against-the-rest" role.
Throwing him in jail three times did nothing to disturb his self-belief, and doing it again will hardly make any difference.
If anything, this week's proceedings prove the inefficiency, though not the ineffectiveness, of tribunal procedures. Ultimately, the lawyers will get their man. Apart from the possibility of sending him to Mountjoy again, the legal bills are already mounting and the tribunal has a lien on his house.
But after almost four years of investigation, you still feel that the tribunal is only scratching at the surface of his affairs.
We still don't know the secrets of his overseas trusts and bank accounts, we have only fragmentary knowledge of his involvement in land rezonings and property deals, and he has yet to figure centrally in any allegation investigated in public hearings. Perhaps the lawyers have amassed all this information, but whatever the case, it is unlikely to emerge for some time.
This week, we learned that he took a substantial under-the-counter payment as part of the sale of some of his land in Lucan. Now this might cause him problems with the Revenue Commissioners, but it isn't what the tribunal was set up to investigate.
Mr Lawlor's practice of issuing false invoices was also examined, but we knew about this three years ago. Ditto for his claims of "arm's-length" involvement in offshore companies and accounts, arrangements which allow him to claim he needs someone else's permission to access what is essentially his. And, surprise, surprise, the someone else is usually out of the jurisdiction, unavailable and beyond the grasp of the tribunal.
The net result of all this is that huge resources are being employed to force a single witness to co-operate, yet the results are meagre enough. It may be that there is no better way, but it's certainly expensive.
Whatever about his public face of defiance, the process involves considerable pain for Mr Lawlor.
Aside from the threat of jail and the costs involved, there is the public humiliation, which was lapped up readily yesterday by a crowded public gallery.
You have to ask why he goes through with it; in fact, journalists have been asking this question for years. While Mr Lawlor faces the music in Dublin Castle, his erstwhile business associates go about their business untroubled and others stay safely beyond the tribunal's reach. Greater love hath no man, it seems, than to lay down his career for his former friends.