Millions 'still unaccounted for'

Millions of pounds which passed through the bank accounts of former Fianna Fáil TD, Mr Liam Lawlor, remain unaccounted for, according to lawyers for the planning tribunal.

Mr Des O'Neill SC, for the tribunal, said Mr Lawlor had given incomplete information to the tribunal, had provided divergent explanations of land deals he was involved in and had failed to provide access to vital financial records both in Ireland and overseas.

His record of compliance with tribunal orders was "lamentable" and had seriously delayed the work of the tribunal.

Yet he was "fully aware" of the history of his involvement with the tribunal and the requirement on him to provide full co-operation.

The tribunal has already warned Mr Lawlor in correspondence that he could face legal proceedings for not co-operating, he pointed out. This could result in the High Court sending him to jail for a fourth time.

But Mr Lawlor "vociferously disputes" the tribunal's claim that large amounts of his income remain unaccounted for, Mr O'Neill said.

Mr O'Neill urged the tribunal to dismiss Mr Lawlor's claim that he had inadvertently failed to provide some documents, and was unable to provide others because the legal firms in possession of them were demanding payment of their costs before co-operating.

Mr Lawlor told the tribunal that one London firm had incurred legal costs of £60,000 in dealing with the tribunal's request for records, and another one, in Gibraltar, was seeking £10,000.

Until the tribunal was "amenable" to covering those costs, he wasn't in a position to provide documents.

However, Mr O'Neill said the tribunal had always insisted that the cost of any party could only be dealt with at the conclusion of an investigation.

There was no legal provision to allow for interim payments. Recent court rulings arising from other tribunals had confirmed this view.

When Mr Lawlor offered to obtain some files for the tribunal, Mr O'Neill accused him of conducting a policy of delaying and obfuscating the tribunal by leaving such an offer until the moment he was in the witness box. Mr Lawlor said this was "completely, totally wrong".

Much of yesterday's proceedings concerned the sale by Mr Lawlor and his wife Hazel of one acre of land around their house, Somerton, in Lucan in November 2001.

Some £400,000 arising from the proceeds was sent to Mr Lawlor's lawyers in Gibraltar, Haynes & Trias.

The tribunal wrote to Mr Lawlor last March seeking information about the transaction. It wasn't satisfied with the affidavits initially sworn by Mr Lawlor, who claimed the proceeds went to discharge a loan he had received from Longwater Investments, a Bahamian-registered offshore company.

However, Mr Nicholas Morgan, whose family controls Longwater, has told the tribunal that the proceeds went to the benefit of Mr Lawlor and his wife.

When the tribunal referred in correspondence to previous court proceedings it took against Mr Lawlor, he took this as a "veiled threat" and pointed out that these were no longer valid, Mr O'Neill said.

However, the tribunal complained that the documents supplied by Mr Lawlor were "uninformative" and some were "so general as to be meaningless".

Mr Lawlor took issue with the claim that the documents he submitted were deficient and said he had co-operated in every way.

He said he wasn't in a position financially to seek legal advice.