TD defends right to have access to Cabinet ministers

Independent TD Michael Lowry has defended his right to have access to ministersdespite damning Moriarty tribunal findings against him.

The disgraced Tipperary South representative confirmed leading delegations, including some businessmen, to meet several cabinet members in the past year butrefused to name names.

Mr Lowry said he made no apologies for securing access for constituents before lashing out at Labour Minister for Social Protection Joan Burton, who cautioned colleagues to reassess who they meet.

“I would remind her that my rights and entitlements are not granted by her or the Government. They are granted by the people I represent under the Constitution,” he said.

Mr Lowry’s access to the Cabinet was called into question after it emerged hebrought a business group to the Custom House for talks with Environment MinisterPhil Hogan in March last year. It was just six days after damning tribunal findings against him were published and amid calls for his resignation.

Mr Lowry then revealed he has brought in several delegations over the last year for talks on local and national issues.

He declined to name the ministers involved and would only say the issues related to local and national matters and included education.

“Joan Burton would be better off to focus her attentions and do something to resolve the chaos that reigns in her own Department of Social Protection,” Mr Lowry said.

Jimmy Deenihan, Minister for Arts, Heritage and Gaeltacht Affairs, said it would be better if the meeting had not happened even if it had been scheduled in advance of the Moriarty publication.

The tribunal found Mr Lowry had insidious and pervasive influence on the competition for the state’s second mobile phone licence in the 1990s.

The former minister was found to have received payments of £447,000 from businessman Denis O’Brien — now a billionaire telecoms and media mogul — who went on to win the lucrative licence.

The meeting with Mr Hogan went ahead despite condemnation of Mr Lowry at the time including calls for him to resign his seat and a motion of censure in the Dáil.

Mr Hogan himself said last year that he would have “no truck” for those found to have behaved in the manner described by Moriarty, 48 hours after the meeting.

Mr Lowry brought two directors of farm waste recycling company Filmco to meet the minister as the company fought to stay afloat and save 34 jobs.

The findings of the tribunal were not raised at the Mar 28, 2011, meeting, the minister’s office has said.

Both Mr Lowry and Mr O’Brien reject the findings of the inquiry.

Ms Burton, who has already urged colleagues to review contacts with Mr O’Brien after Taoiseach Enda Kenny shared a platform with him in New York, said she would have preferred if the Lowry meeting had not happened.

“I have said that I think the Government does have to be conscious of how people against whom adverse findings have been made by tribunals of inquiry, how these people interact with members of the Government,” she said.

Mr Lowry hit back: “It’s very simple. This meeting was organised in advance. The meeting did not take an hour. The meeting was constructive and to the point,” he said.

“As it turns out there was nothing the minister could do to resolve the problems.”

Mr Lowry added: “I make no apologies for conducting my duties as a public representative. I have a democratic right to represent the people of South Tipperary.

“I’m not worried about perception. I’m worried about facts. I had a legitimate right to have a meeting with the minister for the environment and I discussed an issue that was the protection of jobs — I’m entitled to do that.”