Minister criticises Hogan meeting with Lowry

It would be better if Environment Minister Phil Hogan had not met Michael Lowry in the wake of the Moriarty tribunal, a Cabinet colleague said today.

The disgraced TD brought a business group to the Custom House for talks in March last year just six days after damning findings against him were published and amid calls for his resignation, the Irish Examiner reported this morning.

Minister for Arts, Heritage and Gaeltacht Affairs Jimmy Deenihan said he accepted that the meeting was scheduled well in advance of the report publication.

“But obviously it would be better for Phil Hogan if that meeting had not happened,” he said.

“But I can understand how this meeting could happen.”

Moriarty 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 IR£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 huge condemnation of Mr Lowry, including calls for him to resign his Dáil seat and a motion of censure in the Dáil.

Mr Hogan himself said in the Dáil 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 director of farm waste recycling company Filmco Jack O’Reilly to meet the minister.

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

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

The minister's office confirmed the meeting took place on March 28, 2011 and insisted that Moriarty was not part of the discussions.

“We can confirm that the minister met Filmco and it was a meeting that Michael Lowry organised and there was a discussion about farm waste plastic recycling,” a spokesman said.

“There was no discussion of Moriarty.”