Lowry intends to contest next election despite investigations
The Independent TD said he remained buoyant, despite being the subject of five investigations, many of them overlapping, over the past nine years. The probes related to his role as a government minister, his tax affairs and the conduct of his refrigeration business.
He stressed he had done nothing wrong as Fine Gael Communications Minister when Denis O’Brien’s Esat Digifone won the second mobile phone licence competition in 1995.
He said there was “no evidence of any political interference by me”.
Speaking to journalists after giving evidence to the Moriarty Tribunal, Mr Lowry denied the fall out from the various inquiries had shaken his spirits or ground him down.
“The one thing that kept me sane and the one thing that gave me great heart and great courage was the support that I have from my own people in Co Tipperary, in North Tipperary.
“As long as I have their support and as long as I retain their confidence, I will be a member of Dáil Éireann and I certainly intend to seek re-election to Dáil Éireann when the next election is called.”
Mr Lowry resigned office in late 1996 after it emerged that businessman Ben Dunne had paid for work on the politician’s Holycross home that was billed to the Dunnes Stores complex at Dublin’s Ilac Centre. Mr Lowry had refrigeration contracts with Dunnes Stores.
Yesterday, he agreed the events of the past decade had taken their toll.
His voice quivering with emotion, Mr Lowry declared: “Over the last nine years I have been vilified. Is there any week that I haven’t been the subject of some unfounded allegation, rumour or innuendo?”
Asked if it was a witch hunt, Mr Lowry said he believed that justice delayed was no justice at all.
“But in my case I have been subjected to the most intense scrutiny - and I’m not referring to the (Moriarty) tribunal; the tribunal has a job to do. I have co-operated with the tribunal, and I will continue to do that.”
Asked if he felt the Moriarty Tribunal should be wound-up, Mr Lowry said it had a job to do and would come to conclusions in its own good time.
