Public is entitled to be informed now

The Moriarty Tribunal began sitting publicly yesterday for the first time since last October. It spent the better part of a year investigating property deals in Britain involving the former Minister for Transport, Energy and Communications, Michael Lowry, and Denis O'Brien.

These were significant because of the overlapping relationships in deals involving both men, especially in view of the awarding of the second mobile telephone licence to Esat Digifone.

The tribunal lawyers believe that the property deals were a means of getting money to Mr Lowry, after

other attempts had failed. Both Mr Lowry and Mr O’Brien have strenuously denied this.

A report updating the progress of the tribunal had been expected yesterday, but Mr Justice Michael

Moriarty explained that, as we are entering a fallow period for news, it might be unfair if the tribunal opened up with an detailed statement about what it had been doing and where it planned to go, because the lawyers will be taking their annual holidays in August and September.

Journalists would inevitably rake over the statement during the so-called “silly season” and the other parties would not have their say on it until the tribunal reconvened after a couple of months. In view of the stop-start nature of the tribunal’s public hearings, the fallow news period would have given journalists a better opportunity to examine the material and explain it to the public, but none of the sitting tribunals seem to be in any hurry to facilitate the informing of the public.

The most sensational aspect of yesterday’s proceedings was the disclosure the tribunal believes it may have been given false documents relating to property transactions in Britain involving Mr Lowry. The problem was that the tribunal has been furnished with different versions of two letters from Christopher Vaughan, a British solicitor who acted for Mr Lowry.

Mr Vaughan’s two letters - dated July 12, and September 5, 2001 - were sent to a property developer in Northern Ireland.

Last March, a journalist gave the tribunal copies of the Vaughan letters that conflicted significantly with copies furnished earlier. Apparent references to the role of Mr Lowry had been omitted from the earlier set of letters. Lawyers for the tribunal suspect that this may have been a deliberate attempt to conceal Mr Lowry’s actual role in one of the property transactions. The tribunal lawyers now insist, as a result, that all of the evidence in relation to these transactions will have to be re-examined.

While the public may have been caught by surprise by the latest revelations, the tribunal has had the

evidence since last March. Both the solicitor and property developer are outside the jurisdiction, and each refused to testify.

Mr O’Brien testified yesterday that he had no knowledge of those letters, which he neither sent nor received.

The public is entitled to know more about what has been going on at the tribunal since last October. They are footing the enormous costs of these proceedings, and it is not good enough that people should have to wait until October to learn what is happening, just because the lawyers are going on holidays.

This tribunal began its deliberations in the last century and if it keeps going at this rate, people may soon be questioning whether it will end in this century.