Telecom rent deal would have cost taxpayer €3m

BEN DUNNE and Michael Lowry sought to double the rent paid by the state for a property owned by Mr Dunne in a deal that would have doubled the value of the premises while leaving the taxpayer more than €3 million out of pocket.

Mr Justice Moriarty described the pair’s attempts in 1995 at hiking up the rent on the building leased by then state-owned Telecom Éireann as “profoundly corrupt to a degree that was nothing short of breathtaking” and said Mr Lowry had behaved in a “reprehensible” manner.

In 1995, Mr Dunne, through his firm Bark Island Ltd, took over Marlborough House, more commonly known Telephone House, on Marlborough Street in Dublin city centre.