FF Govts deliberately withheld memo from Moriarty Tribunal?

[mollox]

The SBP reports that former FG minister Michael Lowry was advised ‘‘not to drag his feet’’ in issuing the state’s second mobile phone licence to Denis O’Brien’s Esat consortium, after a confidential Govt memo, which has remained undisclosed for more than a decade, came to light after communications minister Eamon Ryan told the Moriarty Tribunal that his department was withdrawing a claim of privilege over legal advice his predecessor received on the issue. It is not clear why the department claimed privilege over the letter in the first place, nor why this position has now been reversed.

Sunday Business Post | Irish Business News

However, given the importance of the contents of the memo, it seems highly suspicious and suggests the strong possibility that
(a) a succession of FF-led Govts have deliberately withheld crucial information from the Tribunal in order to keep a prominent former FG politician in the “corruption frame”, to counterbalance the rogues gallery of very prominent FFers already there and
(b) that withholding this document has probably extended the work of the tribunal, and its large associated costs, by several years.

The memo in question detailed the advice given by senior counsel Richard Nesbitt in May 1996 to the Attorney General after he was asked to assess the implications of businessman Dermot Desmond taking a share in the Esat consortium. In the letter, written to communications department secretary John Loughrey, Nesbitt advised that delaying the issuing of the licence would ‘‘not achieve any end’’.

Nesbitt wrote that Lowry was caught ‘‘between two competing interests’’ - claims by Esat that it had fairly won preferred bidder status on merit, and Persona, a rival bidder, which argued that the licence should not be awarded to Esat. Nesbitt advised the minister that if the Motorola-backed Persona group took legal action against his ultimate decision to grant the licence to Esat, ‘‘so be it’’.

‘‘I remain of the view that the minister should not drag his feet in issuing the licence. If there was to be any litigation, so be it, but delaying does not achieve any end,” he wrote.

He went on to say that delaying would ‘‘clearly damage Esat’’ and, if Persona wanted to stop Esat getting the licence, it would have to take appropriate legal action.

‘‘They will then be required to give undertakings to the parties affected, particularly Esat. This will concentrate their minds, particularly in circumstances where the commission are likely to be making unsympathetic noises in relation to their complaint.”

[cyberianpan]

[COLOR=Red]communications minister Eamon Ryan[/COLOR] told the Moriarty Tribunal that his department was withdrawing a claim of privilege over legal advice his predecessor received on the issue.[COLOR=Red] It is not clear why the department[/COLOR] claimed privilege over the letter in the first place, nor why [COLOR=Red]this position has now been reversed[/COLOR].

see
FG: could they form government without Labour (or FF)?

GP's only chance of government next term involves Lowry & FG ! :-P [SIZE=1]*[/SIZE]

cYp
[SIZE=1]*ok I am joking here , I belive the GP have better ethics than that ![/SIZE]

[toxic avenger]

There's a thread already, http://www.politics.ie/justice/63566...-servants.html

[mollox]

see
FG: could they form government without Labour (or FF)?

GP's only chance of government next term involves Lowry & FG ! :-P [SIZE=1]*[/SIZE]

cYp
[SIZE=1]*ok I am joking here , I belive the GP have better ethics than that ![/SIZE]

Of course you're only joking about Green Party ethics.

But do you disagree with the hypothesis that this may well have been deliberate action by a succession of FF-led Govts to keep Lowry and, by association FG, swinging in the corruption wind, in a decade when a succession of prominent FFers were being exposed as crooks and kept men?

[mollox]

There's a thread already, http://www.politics.ie/justice/63566...-servants.html

This is a very specific topic from the broader discussion: a conspiracy theory perhaps, but a compelling one.

[cyberianpan]

Of course you're only joking about Green Party ethics.

But do you disagree with the hypothesis that this may well have been deliberate action by a succession of FF-led Govts to keep Lowry and, by association FG, swinging in the corruption wind, in a decade when a succession of prominent FFers were being exposed as crooks and kept men?

It looks like it merits investigation ... and one thing I will say:

There's very limited oversight of legal advice given to the government here ... privilege is always claimed ... it is obviously an area where a "committee" should have oversight

The problem is that our legislature & executive sit in the one house (Dáil) ... makes me wonder what the Seanad is for ... anyway

cYp

[Silvio Dante]

So is Lowry in the clear now..?

[cyberianpan]

So is Lowry in the clear now..?

He remains a tax evader ... one who engaged in complex & wilful manipulation of the system

cYp

[toxic avenger]

This is a very specific topic from the broader discussion: a conspiracy theory perhaps, but a compelling one.

It would require that the civil service be in on the conspiracy. I'll post what I posted earlier:

A well-placed leak to the Sunday Independent the same week that Lowry's English solicitor is questioned on his own letters saying Lowry was involved with O'Brien, plus another solicitor alleges Lowry paid blackmail money to hush up his involvement?

I'll also say that a similar defence was used in the case of Bertie Ahern re. the allegation that he was paid 30K to prevent Blanchardstown getting designation in 1994. Civil Service papers appear to show that it was already departmental policy that Blanchardstown not get designation. Yet other parts of the allegation stack up. The part where it was alleged to have been discussed between Owen O'Callaghan and Ahern in 1994, the part where it was discussed with AIB Bank, it's all recorded by AIB contemporaneously. And 30K DID find its way, explained with a fictitious story, into Ahern's account within weeks, on the very same day he met Frank Dunlop, O'Callaghan's bagman. Not that it's a proven thing, but it's certainly not as outlandish as it first appeared when the departmental advice backed up the Ahern version. So pre-existing departmental advice is never as cut and dried a defence as it can originally seem.

[mollox]

He remains a tax evader ... one who engaged in complex & wilful manipulation of the system

cYp

That's undisputed - he's made a large tax settlement with the rev.comms.
However, it's not the remit of the Moriarty Tribunal which will cost the state an estimated €100m.
Had this document had been disclosed at an early stage by the Govt, would we have saved a very large portion of that?