Off-shore bank cash payments

BUSINESSMAN Denis O’Brien paid former Communications Minister Michael Lowry £147,000 via two conduits which also involved off-shore cash transfers, the Moriarty Tribunal has found.

The complex passage of the money included claims that the cash was used by Mr O’Brien to pay now-deceased Smurfit executive David Austin for a holiday home in Marbella, while Mr Austin was also said to be involved in the loaning of money to Mr Lowry for the purchase of a house in Carysfort Avenue, Blackrock, in Dublin.

The tribunal report claims the payment of the money from Mr O’Brien to Mr Lowry was “carefully planned and covert” and that there was “a deliberate concealment” on the part of both men regarding the transaction which included accountant Aidan Phelan.

Damningly, the tribunal also claims that the £147,000 lodged by Mr Austin from his off-shore Bank of Ireland account in Jersey to Mr Lowry’s off-shore account with Irish Nationwide in the Isle of Man was then switched back — with interest — to Mr Austin’s account on the day the McCracken Tribunal was set up on February 7, 1997.

The Moriarty Tribunal claims the money was “hastily repaid out of fear of possible disclosure at the time that the McCracken Tribunal was established”.

The report claims the money was paid by Mr O’Brien to Mr Lowry, indirectly, through Aidan Phelan and David Austin, “giving rise to a reasonable inference that the motive for making the payment was connected with the public office then held by him”.

As for Mr Lowry’s Irish Nationwide account in the Isle of Man, into which the money was transferred, the tribunal found that in opening the account he put his address as that of his accountants — without their knowledge — and asked that no correspondence be sent to his Tipperary home. He also listed his occupation as company director, even though he was a Cabinet minister.