Should MICHAEL LOWRY resign

Graham Bright

Hi,

The Moriarty tribunal has cost the Irish state around 42 million euros with a wealth of evidence published against Independent TD Michael Lowry. Should Mr. Lowry still be allowed to hold his office as TD are should he be forced to resign.

Is it possible to trust a prominent member of our society in the wake of such damming allegations, and what will be the future cost to the tax payer if Mr. Lowery continues his position in politics.

Looking forward to your feedback


Graham

excaliburhc

we cant trust him but he deserves due process.

not fired yet - just suspended perhaps without pay - at least until allegations have been proven or not by the Gardie / cab .

fire him now and we just end up the same as callelly and the possibility of suing the state (us) for damages.

you would imagine that if he had any dignity he would voluntarily stand aside until proven innocent / guilty .

but it is hilarious that someone with such a reputation was a) allowed go for nomination and b) people actually voted him - joys of local politics i assume.

dan_d

In answer to your thread question....yes.

There are plenty of reasons. But for me, the very Irish thing of "well, we didn't actually break any laws" is bullcrap. It's the reason why Sean Fitz et al aren't in jail, the reason why Bertie is still playing the wide-eyed innocent, and the reason why we are where we are. There's enough suspicion and questionable evidence there to prove that while he wasn't acting illegally by the letter of the law, he was acting in a very questionable manner. Therefore he is not trustworthy.And I for one, have had enough of that.

He knows where the door is and should make sure it doesn't hit him on the way out.

ghosttown

Should he resign ? He should be forced to write his resignation letter from within his prison cell.

later12

Only last month this man was elected to the national legislature with tremendous popular support having already been blacklisted by various authorities of the state for his previous political and tax compliance failures.

He was elected in spite of these failures, and to deny or to censure Mr Lowry now, one month later, on the basis of the findings of a (much criticised) non-judicial body whose findings were not corroborated by witnesses or, indeed, were actively challenged by witnesses, would be wrong.

I sincerely hope that for the dignity of Irish representative democracy and for the respect of the people's choice in North Tipperary, that Enda Kenny assumes his rightful place under their authority and accepts the illegitimacy of attempting to censure an elected member of Dail Eireann.

Cookie_Monster

No he should not resign. He should be sacked, investigated and thrown in jail.

seamus

Lowry is a barefaced liar and has been shown to be in the past.

He gave a statement to the Dail in 1995 saying that he had no offshore accounts. He had four of them at time. He also stated that all his tax affairs were in order, but later after his offshore accounts were revealed, he ended up having to make a settlement with Revenue.

He will say anything whatsoever to avoid incriminating himself. It just goes to show the standard of dignity in Irish politics that individuals like Lowry will continue to sit in the Dail despite having been shown to lie, time and time again in the Dail, and therefore to the country.

Unfortunately there is no method through which to sack a TD from the Dail, so the only route open is to secure a conviction against him and have him imprisoned for six months or more. Unfortunately by the time any case even got to court, Lowry would most likely be dead or retired.

All we can do is hope his constituents have the intelligence to see past his parish pump politics and give him dog's abuse until he resigns.

20Cent

He is a proven liar. He has lied in the Dail chamber and is dodgy as hell.
He should resign but he's not like normal people who would be totally embarrassed by this situation.
Enda should have a few words in his ear re-a tax audit, kiss the casino goodbye etc until he gets the message to feck off.

ednwireland

20Cent wrote: »

Enda should have a few words in his ear re-a tax audit, kiss the casino goodbye etc until he gets the message to feck off.

Enda should set the revenue dogs on him, they would tear anyone else apart (funny that)

he should resign (but wont) so all that can happen is theres a conviction against him and he has to resign, if that doesnt happen hes going nowhere like plenty of others manly on MM's side of the house that should have gone before him.

Graham Bright

Hi,

Is the 42 million euros spent to investigate polical wrong doings justified or wasted money? Would the money not be better spent on direct criminal/civil investigations through the courts?

If Michael Lowry is guilty of his actions and nothing happens I guess the tax payer has to be burdened with yet another bill!

Graham

PeakOutput

He shouldnt resign

Everyone knew this about him before he was elected in this time around and they still elected him his constituency gets what they deserve.

also it is not possible for him to be 'fired' or in anyway forced out of the dail (unless he is convicted possibly)

Tipp Man

Can I ask a question what the hell was the point of the tribunals if they weren't going to put them behind bars? We have spent 14 years, and a large fortune, getting this report and now we are going to have to wait for a Garda and/or CAB investion before anything can happen.

Why the hell not just get straight to the Garda/CAB investigation and skip this waste of time and money??

PS I thought the cost was 140 million?

20Cent

Graham Bright wrote: »

Hi,

Is the 42 million euros spent to investigate polical wrong doings justified or wasted money? Would the money not be better spent on direct criminal/civil investigations through the courts?

If Michael Lowry is guilty of his actions and nothing happens I guess the tax payer has to be burdened with yet another bill!

Graham

I read somewhere that the tribunals have been a net profit for the Gov. Lowry can still be charged costs which he should be as he obstructed it the whole way through.
Agree it should have been a criminal case from the start though.

PhatPiggins

I'd be concerned of another Ivor Callely style fiasco where a ruling has been given based on opinion rather then fact. Would anyone be shocked if the CAB came back in 3/4 years time with no hard evidence to convist Lowery, who in turn sues (and wins) for damages.

I'd be with the poster above who said he shouldn't resign he should be sacked and/or charged. We've had far too many cases of politicians partially resigning when they should have been sacked outright.

Floppybits

PhatPiggins wrote: »

I'd be concerned of another Ivor Callely style fiasco where a ruling has been given based on opinion rather then fact. Would anyone be shocked if the CAB came back in 3/4 years time with no hard evidence to convist Lowery, who in turn sues (and wins) for damages.

I'd be with the poster above who said he shouldn't resign he should be sacked and/or charged. We've had far too many cases of politicians partially resigning when they should have been sacked outright.

Even if he is sacked, there is nothing to stop him from running in the by election and considering the support that he has in North Tipp, he would get back in. The only way to remove him is to have him investigated and thrown in Jail as it seems that is the only way you can be removed from the Dail.

HellFireClub

We need to come up with a constitutional mechanism by way of a referendum, whereby when people like Michael Lowry, Beverly Cooper Flynn, Liam Lawlor, Ray Burke, and the rest of them, when they get elected by their constituency, in the full knowledge that they are not fit to sit in the national parliament, and they subsequently end up being formally attached to serious wrongdoings in office, be it down to a tribunal report, a Garda investigation, CAB or whatever, that we then have a mechanism whereby we can "de-elect/expel" these individuals from the Dail on a permanent basis. A convenient method would be a 2/3's vote of the Dail to expel the TD from their constituency with the approval of the president, and then send the empty seat back to their constituency for them to elect someone fit for purpose and keep doing it until these thick gombeens start taking their voting responsibilities more seriously.

seamus

Tipp Man wrote: »

Can I ask a question what the hell was the point of the tribunals if they weren't going to put them behind bars? We have spent 14 years, and a large fortune, getting this report and now we are going to have to wait for a Garda and/or CAB investion before anything can happen.

There are a couple of reason. Firstly a tribunal can come to an end and print a report. A Garda investigation can hit a dead end and no report is produced.
There's probably a certain amount of political meddling too. The initial tribunal (McCracken) instigated under a FG government reported back very quickly with negative claims about Lowry, Haughey and others.

Although Moriarty was then established by Bertie, the deeper that CJH seemed to be mired in filth, the slower the tribunal appeared to move.

Then a month after FF are ousted from Government, Moriarty reports.

It's a strange coincidence indeed.

HellFireClub

In all seriousness, we've heard all this hot air before, "I've done nothing wrong, it's all a witch hunt", blah blah blah...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UesOWVRdWLU

There is nothing new in any of this...

ednwireland

anyway i always thought the tribunals were set up in a way as to ensure no-one would ever be prosecuted for anything (except for possibly a couple of fall guys)

pretty pointless all in all

jimmycrackcorm

Our tribunals are a scandalous waste of money, because for the cost, they achieve very little.

Vizzy

As I said on another thread a few days ago,Lowry got 14,104 first preference votes and vastly exceeded the necessary quota.
However I wonder how many of the 14,104 would put him down as a reference on a job application in Dublin or Cork ?
With regard to whether or not he should be sacked,I would agree that we would need to be careful not to sack him and for him to come back and sue us.
BTW he has already said that he intends to stand in the next election !

Up Tipp:):):)

Browney7

Its cute hoorism that has got has got us into this economic mess that we're in.

Deny, deny and deny some more and sure twill all blow over seems to be the order of the day for all these crooks in the past. Any politician that has any thread of suspicion hanging over them for illicit dealings should resign.

What happens in this God forsaken country makes me ill at times.

hinault

He should resign but he won't.
Lowry will try to brazen it out for as long as he can.

The only way he will be removed from office is if he is made bankrupt or he is convicted of a serious criminal offence.
Either of these two options would be acceptable to me.

th3 s1aught3r

Why dont they have a criminal investigation, and if found guilty, lock him up ? ( I assume corruption at this level would carry a custodial sentence)

Graham Bright

In this regard, I think tribunals are a total waste of time and a cover up for our lack of judiciary

Interesting article :-->

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/weary-taxpayers-face-8364700m-bill-for-tribunals-2151712.html

Furthermore, Mr. Lowry is quoted as saying :-

“I believe that in the fullness of time, their contribution will be exposed for what it is: a scandal of truly epic proportions,” he said.

So either the tribunal is incorrect or Mr. Lowry who should we believe ????

42 million odd euros WASTTEEED, and there is nothing in the world we can do about it:mad:

With this style of politics is it us the Irish people to blame for the way the country is today if we fail to act and act harshly. This guy should be behind bars in jail. Everytime he stands up and opens his mouth he is costing us the Irish tax payer money. AND WE PUT UP WITH IT. Fantastic.

Graham Bright

And he stills get a pension of 100000 per year! What a laugh

HellFireClub wrote: »

In all seriousness, we've heard all this hot air before, "I've done nothing wrong, it's all a witch hunt", blah blah blah...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UesOWVRdWLU

There is nothing new in any of this...

Graham Bright

http://www.rte.ie/news/2011/0331/moriarty.html

The all-party motion noted the final report of the Moriarty Tribunal, and said the conduct set out in the report was 'completely unacceptable for a member of the House'

PeterIanStaker

He should be escorted out of the Dail chamber in handcuffs, but its not going to happen. The electorate and the media (to a certain extent) tolerate con-men like him, which is just nauseating.

SARAH ANNE

This is funny in a sick sorta way the taxpayer has been saddled with a 150 mililon bill for a tribunal that took 14 years to tell us something we already knew, and low and behold they tribunal decides to pipe up when Lowry has no longer the balance of power in a minority goverment. All this smacks of political smoke and mirrors by the biggest gangsters in the dail, and guess who is brought to the back of the bike shed over it? no stupid, the taxpayer. 11 million a year please. This time next year MR. Lowry will still be in the Dail and we the tax payer will still be up to our neck in debt.. Its time for us to wake up and smell the political B.S.

monkey9

I don't think he should resign. I don't think that Judge Moriarty's conclusions would have changed people's opinions on Lowry.

The tribunal has been going on for fourteen years. The people of North Tipperary would have been well aware of what was being said in the tribunal and of Lowry's past. Yet they still voted him in.

He is in the Dail to represent the people of North Tipperary. If there was another election tomorrow, i firmly believe they'd vote him in again.

Ultimately what came out in the report last week was one man's opinion. As i've said already, that won't change people's opinion of Lowry. He has a mandate from the people, a mandate that i believe still stands.

petroltimer

What do people think, if a bi election was to be held say next week in north tipp with lowary running how would he do?

He got around 14000 first votes last time, so if i was to have a bet i would say he would still get around 11\12 K votes and still get in.

Killer Pigeon

The thing is, it's not as if people didn't know that he was involved in corruption before the election - they new well. They've been hearing about it for the last 14 years. However, the people decided to give him a mandate yet again even though they knew what he had been up too. If this is the case then the people's decision is final no matter what other people say, even though I would prefer he'd resign myself. He has every right to remain a T.D. and the Dáil can't force him to resign either (I believe). It's up to him to resign ... basically.

[Jackass]

"Should MICHAEL LOWRY resign?"

Of course he should. I don't think this is even worthy of debate, he's a disgrace.

I'm happy that the current Government (and his former party) are reffering the findings to the Garda and there was no party involvement in this and no cover ups from his party.

Difference between FF & FG imo.

Not endemic in the party in FG, and when there is a bad apple, he's held accountable by the party and not protected.