Eschewing the High Court signals gravity of tribunal’s intent

LIAM LAWLOR has apparently exhausted the patience of the three judges of the Planning Tribunal. This week, they essentially decided to throw the book at him.

They concluded that he had delayed in providing documents the tribunal requested last March.

He provided an affidavit in relation to those documents that was “clearly deficient in both form and substance” in the view of the tribunal. When he gave evidence to the tribunal in July, he “repeatedly lied” on certain matters, according to Mr Justice Alan Mahon, who added that Lawlor was “evasive, dismissive, unco-operative, obstructive and lacking in co-operation to a degree which can only amount to a very serious attempt to knowingly mislead, obstruct and hinder the tribunal in its work”. The judge also stated that the former Dáil deputy showed a “blatant disregard for the truth” on two particular occasions.