Why we should always remember ex-minister Lowry’s colourful past

TO compare Michael Lowry to Mario Balotelli might seem ridiculous, but bear with me for a few moments please.

What could the Tipperary North TD have in common with the Italian football star who plays for Manchester City? How could parallels be drawn between the ongoing financial controversies involving the former Government minister and the troubled footballer who seems to draw trouble upon himself both on and off the pitch? Or between the actions of a seemingly mature and world-aware adult and those of a clearly immature young man?

Well, the common thread is the pleas of victimhood and of being misunderstood that we hear from both whenever their actions are uncovered. During one match last season the Italian celebrated a goal by lifting his jersey to reveal a t-shirt with the slogan, “why always me?” This came from a man who, among other things, has started a fire in his own house by allowing his friends to set off fireworks in a bathroom.

Lowry has never unbuttoned his shirt to reveal a similar t-shirt, but he has similar effrontery. Many years ago, he approached me during a break at the McCracken tribunal — where he was giving evidence about his financial dealings — to ask me to go easy on what I wrote about his testimony. Many times since he has complained bitterly about the attention he has received from the “Dublin” media; it’s all so unfair, apparently.

And as for the findings of the Moriarty tribunal? Well many of the comments made about the judge are of such bitter, inaccurate and deliberately malign import that were anyone to have said something similar about Lowry, he’d have threatened them with legal action.

But here’s the problem: by his actions, just like with Balotelli, Lowry keeps giving us reason to write about him.

A report from closer to home hit him this week. This newspaper revealed that Lowry had failed to declare to the Dáil, in his register of interests for 2011, part ownership of a property in England, some 25 acres that he shares with a Tipperary businessman called Liam Carroll.

Under rules based on the Ethics in Public Office Acts, TDs are obliged to register ownership of any property, other than their family home and any holiday home, as long as it has a value of more than €13,000.

Lowry had his excuses ready quickly. The land, he believes, is worthless, because it has no planning permission for development and is landlocked. He said he will only declare it if it is rezoned and has value to realise. He said that he had options to buy other pieces of land there previously which he decided not to exercise, but he did sell other land for far more than €13,000.

Many people might wonder what the fuss is about. His explanation seems plausible (although it is remarkable that land in England is worth less than €1,000 per acre). But whatever: it fits into a pattern of behaviour. Little in the ex-minister’s world seems to be straightforward and even when it could be, he chooses not to make it so.

Earlier this year, for example, The Sunday World newspaper claimed that Lowry had been given a €600,000 loan in 2006 by Michael Fingleton’s Irish Nationwide Building Society to purchase 11 acres of land at the Tipperary village of Gortnahoo, near Thurles. The paper reported that Lowry’s company, Abbeygreen Counsulting, had yet to repay half of the debt and had been deemed by the Irish Bank Resolution Company (of which the old building society is now part) to be an “uncooperative debtor”.

Lowry had answers for that one, of course, saying that he had no problems with meeting repayments on the debt and the position had been misrepresented. The committee for registering member’s interests gave him a pass for not declaring ownership of that land because he had declared an interest in the company. It was up to others to then find out what it owns in turn. And he insisted that the land was not connected with, and would not benefit, from the casino proposal for land nearby at Two-Mile Borris that had been proposed by businessman Richard Quirke and for which Lowry had actively canvassed support.

Only last year the Irish Times reported the existence of another company of which Lowry was a director but which he had not declared on his register of interests. It produced filings from the Companies Registration Office that showed Lowry was a director of an outfit called GDCL Business Consultants, with an address on Northumberland Road, Dublin, that had been registered in August 2009. It described him as owning a quarter of the shares. The Oireachtas guidelines for TDs require they must declare any “directorship or shadow directorship of any company”. Lowry said “there is a letter on the file for me, withdrawing from that company” but none were available at the CRO at the time.

And why does this all matter? Because Michael Lowry is a public representative. He is elected to represent its interests, not his own. He draws a fine salary for doing so and gets excellent tax free expenses on top of that. He is supposed to adhere to the same rules as all other public representatives, to give us confidence that his actions are transparent and honest.

We should have no difficulty with Michael Lowry engaging in personal investments, however, we have discovered a pattern of behaviour in Lowry that suggests that, notwithstanding the decision of the electorate of Tipperary North on four occasions since his political downfall in 1996, he is not the type of person who should be indulged if we want a better standard of national politics.

Lowry carries on regardless in politics despite the Moriarty Tribunal’s findings that, based on the enormous amount of evidence it had examined, Lowry had received large payments from businessman Denis O’Brien in the 1990s and had exercised “insidious and pervasive” influence on the competition for the award of the State’s second mobile phone licence. (Both O’Brien and Lowry have refused consistently to accept those findings).

The report also found that Lowry, when minister, interfered in a rent arbitration process in an attempt to secure a benefit for Ben Dunne. He, of course, was the man who had paid for £395,000 worth of building work at Lowry’s family home at Holycross, but had passed the payments through the books of Dunnes Stores, as a way of evading tax. There were more payments and, as this newspaper discovered last year, there were references to Lowry personally pocketing £34,500 that was intended by Dunnes Stores to constitute Christmas bonuses for Lowry’s staff.

Eventually Lowry’s company Garuda reached a settlement with Revenue to pay €1.26 million and Lowry made a personal payment of €192,000. The Balotelli of Irish politics claimed after the publication of Moriarty that “they tortured me in the process and now they come up with a limp report which is not based on substance which was not based on facts and which would not stand up in any court of law.”

“Why always me?” indeed. But for as long as Lowry remains active in Irish politics we should remind ourselves regularly of his past and hope that journalists continue to probe his present.

* The Last Word with Matt Cooper is broadcast on 100-102 Today FM, Monday to Friday, 4.30pm to 7pm.