Despite receiving sharp criticism for his actions, accountant Denis O’Connor, who provided advice to ex-minister Michael Lowry, has received €371,000 in legal costs reimbursement from the Moriarty tribunal. The repayment comes nearly three decades after the inception of the inquiry. The reimbursement was made by the State Claims Agency on 5th March, disclosed the Department of the Taoiseach, when answering inquiries.
In accordance with Mr Lowry’s January statement on settling a long-standing dispute over costs with the tribunal, the Agency also disbursed over €2.49 million to him on the same date. Earlier, In March 2021, Mr Lowry accepted €377,244.14 from the tribunal, which, he claimed, was linked to his victorious Court of Appeal action opposing the tribunal’s decision to grant him merely one-third of his legal costs for participating in the inquiry.
With the recent payment of €2,498,325.20 combined with the €6,150 given in 2023 and the 2021 payment, it appears that Mr Lowry has secured over €2.88 million in legal fees from the tribunal. He, however, opted not to respond to inquiries about the funds.
Although the tribunal’s final report surfaced in 2011, proceedings are yet to come to an end. The department confirmed that arrangements for the final and total closure of the tribunal are ongoing.
Mr O’Connor did not respond to communications requesting his comments on his demand for “plaintiff legal costs”. Notwithstanding the tribunal’s harsh criticism of his behaviour, it made the reimbursement. He played a pivotal role in the lengthy scrutiny of the 1995 granting of the State’s second mobile phone license to Denis O’Brien’s firm Esat Digifone, during Mr Lowry’s tenure as a Fine Gael minister.
Considered one of the most profitable ever allotted by the State, the licence was a central consideration in exhaustive investigations that spanned many years, culminating in a 2011 report containing negative conclusions by Mr Justice Michael Moriarty. Both Mr O’Brien, who has consistently refuted the judge’s assertion that Mr O’Brien paid money to Mr Lowry, who “ensured the winning” of the licence, and Mr Lowry, now serving as an Independent TD, repudiated the report’s conclusions.
The court determined that Mr O’Connor played a role in a premeditated deception, masterminded by both him and Mr Lowry, intended to mislead the tribunal concerning a portion of its activities. Additionally, the judge alleged Mr O’Connor amongst seven others in maintaining a deliberate and constant cover-up designed to hide from the tribunal any financial links between Mr Michael Lowry and Mr Denis O’Brien.
In 2017, after examining the claimed interference with the tribunal, An Garda Síochána presented a case to the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), which subsequently led to no charges being pressed. Over a decade after the final report, other conclusions drawn by the judge are still subject to a Garda inquiry. According to Garda, the investigation is still underway and no additional details are available at present.
The Department of the Taoiseach manages the administrative side of the tribunal. The State Claims Agency handles the processing and fulfilment of settlements, subsequently seeking reimbursement from the department.