FORMER minister Mr Michael Lowry TD made only one inquiry to any Government Department about Dunnes Stores, according to evidence the tribunal gathered.
And the query which Mr Lowry raised with the Department of Agriculture concerning a prosecution against a Dunnes Stores branch in Cork was a matter of "complete insignificance", the tribunal heard yesterday.
Evidence was given that Mr Lowry raised the matter in April or May 1995 with Mr Michael Miley, who was programme manager for the then minister for agriculture, Mr Ivan Yates.
Mr Miley told counsel for the tribunal, Mr Anthony Aston, that the question came up at the end of a conversation in an "almost by the way fashion".
"Mr Lowry asked did I know the procedures which were used by the Department in prosecuting retailers, to quote him, "for selling rotten spuds," said the witness.
Mr Miley told Mr Lowry he did not know the procedures but promised to get back to him. "I didn't regard the query as being particularly serious and he didn't indicate to me that the query carried any particular urgency, he said.
Asked if Mr Lowry indicated that a summons had issued, Mr Miley said he asked the then minister if he had any case in mind and he had referred to a Dunnes Stores branch in Cork which the Department was prosecuting. "I had no idea at the time which branch of Dunnes Stores it was."
It was only recently, as a result of a letter from the tribunal to the secretary of the Department of Agriculture, that he had established it was the Ballyvolane branch.
Mr Miley said that some days after Mr Lowry's query, he was in his office with Dr Paddy Power, who was assistant secretary of the Department with responsibility for horticulture, discussing other matters. "The Michael Lowry query came back into my head and I said, "by the way, how do the Department initiate prosecutions against retailers for selling inferior quality potatoes?"
"l told him why. l said Michael Lowry had been on to me inquiring about this, that apparently Dunnes Stores in Cork somewhere are being prosecuted." Dr Power explained "that it comes from the appropriate inspector on the ground up to the horticultural section, goes to the assistant principal, to the principal officer, finds its way on to the appropriate assistant secretary's desk, it goes from there to the secretary's desk and it finally winds its way on to the Minister's office."
After this, the Chief State Solicitor's office in Dublin would be asked to initiate the prosecution. Mr Miley said he took a note of that and later he was talking about other matters to Mr Mark Kennelly, special adviser to Mr Lowry from June 6th, 1995 until November last year, and he passed it on.
It was at least two weeks before he gave the information to Mr Kennelly because it was an item to which he attached little importance. "In most cases when people ring you up, and you don't hear from them again, you also anticipate that they don't attach a whole lot of importance to it.
Referring to evidence by Mr Bernard Walsh of Dunnes Stores, Mr Aston asked if Mr Miley's recollection might be incorrect and that Mr Lowry had asked if it would be possible to procure an adjournment. "Is it possible that in fact there was an element of urgency in the conversation?" asked counsel.
Mr Miley: "If there was I didn't detect any." He added that he contacted nobody but Mr Kennelly to communicate the results of his inquiry to Dr Power.
Mr Miley confirmed for Mr Garrett Cooney SC, counsel for Dunnes Stores Holding Companies and Subsidiaries, that he had spoken about the matter to Mr Lowry once only, and that was at the end of a telephone conversation about "more pressing matters".
Mr Cooney: "This was in fact a relatively trivial matter compared to the other matters you had to deal with during your time in the Department?"
Mr Miley: "l regarded it as such."
Mr Cooney: "And a matter of complete insignificance". isn't that correct?"
Mr Miley: "l treated it so."
The witness said he never mentioned the matter to Mr Yates until two weeks ago, when he had done so out of courtesy, to inform him he would be appearing at the tribunal.
He told counsel for Mr Lowry Mr Donal O'Donnell SC, that the Minister's office received hundreds of communications from TDs every week. Mr Miley would have handled dozens of these.
Mr O'Donnell then referred to a standard letter written to all Government Departments requesting information about queries raised by any member of the Oireachtas regarding Dunnes Stores.
Mr O'Donnell said it would appear from those inquiries that this case of the Ballyvolane spuds" was the only one in which Mr Lowry had made any communication about Dunnes Stores. Mr Miley said it was certainly true in his case.
Mr O'Donnell then told the tribunal chairman. Mr Justice McCracken, that he was assuming this was the only incident involving Mr Lowry, otherwise he would have been informed to the contrary.
Counsel for the tribunal, Mr Den is McCullough SC, said Mr O'Donnell could be assured there were no surprises in store for him. "He has what the tribunal has got." There was no other evidence concerning Mr Lowry in relation to the tribunal's letter to Government Departments.
Mr Kennelly said Mr Miley told him about the query raised by Mr Lowry and the information he had got. He passed the information on to Mr Lowry at a meeting in which they also discussed other issues.
Mr Kennelly told Mr O'Donnell that during his time as special adviser to Mr Lowry, he never heard him mention Mr Ben Dunne or Dunnes Stores in any context.