Being dragged through tribunal an election asset

ONCE again the trials of the tribunals have proved an election asset for those who have been dragged through it but still want to further their political careers.

Famously Bertie Ahern’s stock rose in time for the 2007 General Election despite the drip-feed of revelations about his personal finances coming from the Mahon tribunal.

And Dublin Castle has proved to be an equally useful ally in the local elections.

In Dún Laoghaire Rathdown Council Tony Fox was elected as an independent. He had been removed from the Fianna Fáil ticket.

Cllr Fox was named on disgraced lobbyist Frank Dunlop’s charge sheets as one of the Dublin councillors who accepted bribes in exchange for favourable planning decisions. Dunlop was jailed on corruption charges last month, a fallout from his evidence to the Flood and Mahon tribunals.

Cllr Fox denies the accusations and in the early hours of yesterday morning was elected under his own banner in the Dundrum area.

Meanwhile in north Tipperary the machine behind former Fine Gael minister Michael Lowry has grown in strength.

Deputy Lowry is awaiting the final report of the Moriarty tribunal to rule on his involvement in the granting of a mobile phone licence to Denis O’Brien.

However, like his own electoral fortunes since he was kicked out of Fine Gael, his council team increased its vote.

There will now be four councillors working in Tipperary’s North Riding Council who are part of the Lowry Team.

On the other side Frank McBearty Jnr, whose family needed the Morris tribunal to expose their victimisation due to Garda corruption, was elected in the Stranorlar ward of Donegal for the Labour Party.

It was his first time running.