Liam Lawlor - Time to learn truth about corruption

Liam Lawlor’s death in Moscow over the weekend upstaged the Fianna Fáil árd fheis. His going was as sensational as his political demise.

Human compassion and ordinary decency calls for condolences to be offered to his wife and family, because he was both a husband and a father.

His wife’s grief must be all the more intense in the wake of the speculation surrounding his death. Even his most trenchant critics in the media described him as a likeable rogue. He did not take their criticism personally, and he was always ready to provide a useable quote.

As a political clown he provided diversion, but compassion should not blind up to his appalling legacy of political sleaze and corruption. He was a very talented individual who could have distinguished himself in public life, if he had been prepared to be honest.

But instead he chose the path of corruption and in the process demeaned public life and came to personify the image of the morally depraved, corrupt politician.

He frustrated the proceeding of the Flood and Mahon Tribunals with his shameless lying and endless prevarications. His conduct became so infuriating that he was sentenced to terms of imprisonment for contempt on no less than three occasions. He treated his disgrace with derision, as he ridiculed his incarceration as “national service”.

Liam Lawlor complained about the way lawyers were exploiting the tribunals to earn extravagant sums of money, while he dragged out the proceedings himself. Suggestions are now being made that the Mahon Tribunal will never get to the root of the problems, because Lawlor is likely to take many secrets with him to his grave.

The whole process needs to be re-examined. The tribunals are being extended interminably, and Liam Lawlor is most unlikely to be the last person to escape the rigours of the law and justice by deliberately protracting the proceedings.

This has resulted in saddling the taxpayer with enormous legal costs for very dubious benefits.

A tremendous amount of political corruption has been exposed, but in the process this has highlighted failings of the judicial system, because after years of investigation, few of the culprits have been prosecuted.

Lawlor is the latest to escape prosecution for the political corruption with which his name will henceforth be associated. The gardaí have recently come in for criticism over some of their operations from Donegal to Cork and even to Wexford.

Morale within the force is at a low, and public confidence is obviously not much higher. Liam Lawlor’s antics should have been examined by the gardaí, not a collection of overpaid lawyers with a vested interest in dragging out proceedings.

A judicial inquiry should only have been called if the normal investigated process proved inadequate, but instead the government decided to bypass the gardaí and turn the investigation of political corruption over to lawyers who are not trained as investigators.

The demise of Liam Lawlor is, however, likely to help rather than hinder of the Mahon tribunal. Lawlor was an incorrigible liar whose testimony was consistently flawed. His prevarication wasted tribunal time, so his future absence could speed up proceedings.

He won’t be missed at the tribunals - at least not by those who wish to get to the truth.