FORMER minister Michael Lowry last night renewed his fierce attack on the official probe into corruption allegations surrounding the sale of mobile phone licences last night.
The independent Tipperary North deputy accused the Moriarty Tribunal of acting improperly by not informing him until now that it had interviewed two officials from the Attorney General’s office in October 2002.
Mr Lowry said he was "shocked and appalled" that the testimony from the two officials, which he claimed support his version of events, was not revealed sooner.
"Until now nobody other than the tribunal team knew of this highly significant meeting. The tribunal never put the information received from the AG’s office into the public domain.
"This information was concealed. It is an absolute disgrace. It is an extraordinary example of selective disclosure by the tribunal of critical documentation.
"It is now clear that the tribunal was wrongfully intent on delivering devastating findings in respect of the legality of the licence process in circumstances where it knew from private meetings that this matter had been comprehensively addressed and cleared by the Office of the Attorney General before the second mobile phone licence was awarded to Esat Digifone," the former Fine Gael communications minister said after information regarding the matter was given to his solicitors.
The tribunal had been expected to deliver its verdict on the granting of the mobile phone license earlier this year, but will sit again in public session on Thursday.
Mr Lowry has been waging a major campaign to discredit the findings of the tribunal which has been probing the affair for eight-and-a-half years.
Mr Lowry, a central figure in the tribunal’s investigation into allegations of corruption surrounding the awarding of the state’s second mobile phone licence to businessman Denis O’Brien’s Esat Digifone, claimed in the Dáil earlier this month that senior barristers in the inquiry were operating as "untouchables".
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This appeared in the printed version of the Irish Examiner Wednesday, March 17, 2010
