Land was caught up in claims of blackmail

The English land Michael Lowry has not been declaring to the Dáil was previously wrapped up in allegations of blackmail and payoffs.

Mr Lowry told the Moriarty Tribunal his company had paid a Northern Irish agent, Kevin Phelan, £65,000 for finding him the development site at a key motorway junction on the outskirts of Wigan.

Vineacre was owned by Mr Carroll and Mr Lowry. In Oct 2003 Vineacre was dropped from the title and replaced by Michael Lowry.

In its final report the Moriarty Tribunal rejected the evidence of Mr Lowry regarding a controversial Vineacre transaction.

The former minister had said Mr Phelan was paid the £65,000 to find the site.

In his testimony Mr Lowry said he did not want Mr Phelan feeling that he could make any future claim to the title of Vineacre properties.

However, the tribunal found that the money was instead part of a larger settlement reached between Denis O’Brien and Mr Lowry, on one side, and Mr Phelan on the other.

It said Mr Phelan had made threats against a solicitor acting for the two investors in the purchase of Doncaster Rovers and the £65,000, pooled with £150,000 put forward by Mr O’Brien, was used to keep him from exposing the key transactions.

It said an agreement was reached with Mr Phelan which saw him alter his statements in a bid to thwart the tribunal’s investigation of the links between the two men.

“[The payment] was for the principal purpose of presenting a contrived falsehood to the tribunal. This was effected by withdrawal of allegations which had been made by Kevin Phelan,” the final report said.

The tribunal never established the precise nature of the money trail involving the soccer club. However, it said Mr Lowry did have an involvement in the purchase of Doncaster and would have profited from the deal due to the support of Mr O’Brien.

Both men have rejected this because Mr Lowry’s name did not appear on any of the Doncaster deals or as part the Glebe Trust, an Isle of Man company used to finance the investment.

Recently, Senator Diarmuid Wilson told the Seanad he had been given fresh evidence of previously undisclosed meetings surrounding the Doncaster deal.

Mr Wilson said after receiving these he passed them off to the tribunal, which is currently assessing each party’s entitlement to costs.

The tribunal did not probe the purchase of Mr Lowry’s Wigan property in detail, as it was more concerned with associated fees he paid to Mr Phelan.

In his early evidence Mr Lowry confirmed he had an interest in the property. At the time he was declaring a stake in Vineacre in his annual declaration of interests to the Oireachtas.

He has not declared the land in his Oireachtas declaration since 2003 or after Vineacre was dissolved more than three years ago.

Currently the 25-acre Wigan site is effectively landlocked and has been overgrown for several years. The Tipperary partnership had originally secured options to buy out a number of neighbouring sites in the 30-hectare landbank. However, these are expired and Mr Lowry and Mr Carroll are only listed as owning the single 25-acre plot.

Mr Lowry had told the tribunal his plans for Wigan had been ambitious and involved bringing together eight different folios into one development parcel.

After 11 years of lying idle, the pair’s investment now looks likely to realise its potential. Last year, Wigan council identified it as having the potential to house a strategic employment campus with access to the adjoining M6 motorway.

This would see the value of the property increase to more than €500,000 an acre, based on brownfield and commercial sales around the area.

Residents have objected and argued it would lead to the curtailment of a greenbelt, but this was overruled and the rezoning is currently being considered by a planning inspector.

The council had briefly considered rezoning the site for an even more lucrative residential development but that plan was officially shelved last week in favour of the original commercial redesignation. Wigan council said it expects a final decision in the new year.

According to Wigan council’s documents it still believes the area will become a “high quality employment park comprising offices, industrial, manufacturing and logistics”.

The site is located alongside the M6, a major road which is part of Britain’s connection between London and Glasgow.

It was preferred to other strategic junctions in the area as it had better access. It is the main access point into Wigan.

Earlier this year a business that owns land adjoining the Lowry/Carroll tract told Wigan council it had already looked for development partners for the site.

A letter to the council said “it is our belief that the site would represent a significant, strategic employment site for the area”.

People in the area have said developers have scoped out the property over the past decade but it was never sold. It is currently available to be bought even as the rezoning is pending.

Efforts were made to contact both Mr Lowry and Mr Carroll for comment but these were unsuccessful.

No wrongdoing

Earlier this year Michael Lowry was cleared of any wrongdoing when it emerged land he owned in Tipperary was not explicitly referred to in his declaration of members interests.

The Oireachtas committee which overseas the declarations was asked to investigate his stake in an 11-acre landbank at Gortnahoe.

This was listed in the name of a company he controls, Abbeygreen Consulting Ltd.

Originally it had been registered in the name of a Kilkenny-based company run by a solicitor. However, Mr Lowry said it was bought in trust for Abbeygreen consulting.

The committee ruled that because Mr Lowry properly declared an interest in Abbeygreen he was not obliged to register each individual asset in its portfolio.

In 2001 Mr Lowry changed his declaration of interests to include the Vineacre company which was later to become a subject in the Moriarty Tribunal and which owned the Wigan development land until 2003.