Gardaí trawl through report

SPECIALIST fraud gardaí are still trawling through the Moriarty Tribunal report in a bid to establish if a formal investigation into the financial affairs of Independent TD Michael Lowry is warranted.

Garda Commissioner Martin Callinan has asked a team of detectives from the Criminal Assets Bureau and the Garda Fraud Squad to compile a report on the possibility of a formal investigation.

Garda sources said the team of detectives were two to three weeks away from deciding whether an inquiry would go ahead and that no decision was made yet.

Despite reports yesterday that CAB had begun inquiring into Mr Lowry’s financial affairs, the garda source said it was too early to say if bank accounts would be checked in any possible inquiry.

“They are still reading this, then they will decide in a report to him [the commissioner] if an investigation should go ahead. It’s premature to suggest that any garda investigation has been launched,” the senior source said.

CAB chief superintendent Eugene Corcoran has been asked to oversee the review of the damning report into the granting of the state’s second mobile phone licence in the mid-1990s.

Gardaí in their reading of the inquiry are tracking allegations of cash transactions and loan amounts linked to Mr Lowry.

Unlike the tribunal, this would take months rather than years, added the source.