Lawlor ‘used British lawyer to hide £100,000 land payment’
The inquiry also heard further evidence that the former Fianna Fáil TD for Dublin West attempted to hide his control of a company registered in the Czech Republic, through which thousands of euro passed.
English solicitor Tony Seddon said that stg£100,000 from a company owned by Irish property developer Michael Whelan was paid into a client account with his legal practice in London on the instructions of Mr Lawlor.
The tribunal’s legal team believes Mr Lawlor used a false invoice issued on Mr Seddon’s notepaper to disguise an under-the-counter payment related to the sale of one acre of his land in Lucan in 2000.
The tribunal chairman, Judge Alan Mahon, has already said it appeared that the retired politician had engaged in money laundering.
Yesterday, Mr Seddon said he had been satisfied that the £100,000 had been earned by Mr Lawlor as commission on property transactions.
“I had no reason to suspect that what he was telling me was not the truth,” he said.
Asked by tribunal barrister Des O’Neill why Mr Lawlor did not simply lodge the money to his own bank account, Mr Seddon said the politician had wanted him to use the money to make certain investment payments.
However, Mr O’Neill pointed out that all but £3,250 out of the total ended up being paid to Mr Lawlor.
Mr Seddon also provided further evidence that Mr Lawlor was the main beneficiary of a Czech-registered company called Zatecka. In earlier evidence, Mr Lawlor maintained that he had only ever acted as a consultant to the company.
However, Mr Seddon outlined yesterday how he had received instructions from Mr Lawlor to incorporate Zatecka and to transfer a large portion of the £100,000 to an account owned by the company. The sum of £57,608 was subsequently transferred back to one of Mr Lawlor’s Irish companies.
Mr Seddon said he understood that Mr Lawlor was using Zatecka as an “umbrella vehicle” for various property transactions. However, he claimed Mr Lawlor’s interest in the company was “a moveable feast”.
Mr Seddon described the former TD as “a forceful character” who would walk upstairs into his office “without waiting to be invited”.
At the start of yesterday’s hearing Mr Seddon issued a statement which expressed his desire to correct any misunderstanding about his willingness to appear as a witness at Dublin Castle.
The tribunal had previously indicated that it was going to contact the English Law Society after Mr Seddon’s last-minute cancellation of his appearance at the inquiry last July.
He said it was never his intention to refuse to travel to Ireland to give evidence.
Also, it had never been his wish to suggest costs were an impediment to his appearance as a witness.
The solicitor said Mr Lawlor did not owe his legal firm “any significant amount of fees”. The former TD had previously claimed that a £10,000 legal bill had prevented him from obtaining documentation from Seddon’s to give to the tribunal.
The tribunal is expected to rule before the end of the month whether it will refer Mr Lawlor’s “contradictory evidence” to the DPP for a possible criminal prosecution on grounds of perjury.
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