Shatter remains tight-lipped about possible Lowry meeting

Justice Minister Alan Shatter has refused to say if he met disgraced TD Michael Lowry following the Moriarty Report and said that he will not say anything that could prejudice any Garda probe.

The Fine Gael minister was responding to media queries on whether he had held a meeting with Mr Lowry, against whom the tribunal concluded damning findings.

Three ministers have so far admitted meeting Mr Lowry since the report’s findings last year, including Phil Hogan, the environment minister, who met the Tipperary North TD just six days after the inquiry’s release.

Mr Shatter has in recent days refused to answer the queries after it emerged that Mr Lowry had sought a meeting with him over plans for a giant casino in Tipperary.

The Justice Minister defended his decision yesterday, saying, “The Garda Commissioner is consulting with the Director of Public Prosecutions as to whether aspects of the Moriarty Report may be pursued from a criminal point of view and as Minister for Justice I am determined to ensure that I neither do nor say anything that could prejudice matters. This is entirely consistent with my contribution in the Dáil to the debate on the Moriarty Report.”

He also hit out at sections of the media, particularly the Irish Independent, over the queries. He said any compiling of a potential “blacklist” of TDs was similar to the McCarthy era in the US, where thousands of Americans were accused of being communists and became the subject of government inquiries.

“I am unwilling to engage in an unethical media project of compiling a blacklist of elected TDs that ministers should not meet on legitimate official business and also with whom no conversations should ever take place. It is worth asking in this context, in addition to Michael Lowry, who from Sinn Féin, Fianna Fáil and TDs from smaller parties and none should be included in such list? Should ministers only legitimately engage with those TDs with whose words and deeds, both past and present, they agree or with those approved by the media?

“This is a slippery slope we should not slide down nor encourage. It has echoes of the discredited McCarthy era of the 1950s in US politics. We should not allow such an approach to gain even a foothold in a robust constitutional democracy that takes political elective office and constituency representation seriously.”

Meanwhile, Mr Shatter’s Cabinet colleagues defended the right for Mr Lowry, a former Fine Gael minister who was forced to resign, to meet ministers. Jobs Minister Richard Bruton said Mr Shatter was “perfectly entitled” to his decision not to answer the media queries and there was a “struggle within the media world going on” and that was being played out in [media] requests.

“If I was approached by deputies who had a company in their constituency who was facing problems that could result in the loss of employment, clearly you would have to meet the deputies that would bring that issue.”

Public Expenditure Minister Brendan Howlin told Today FM’s Last Word that there was a “constitutional requirement” to entertain Mr Lowry if he had a “legitimate representation” to make. “The elected representative of the people can’t be simply isolated, because we’d have a very long list of people elected to Dáil Eireann, if were to look through their past.”