Lowry's Legacy

first doyle

I'm only a young buck from Tipperary and I haven't been around long enough to understand Michael Lowry's full legacy. All I know is that he has been implicated in a number of tribunals and most recently his house has been raided by revenue. Now if your house is raided by the revenue and you've been previously involved in tribunals, I think this is enough to raise doubt in the most reasonable minds that your not fit to serve as a public official.

I'm very bitter having spent time in university and now I have to immigrate because of the way politicians have run this country for the past couple of decades. And I think Lowry is one of the remnants of this dying breed of politician that bled this country dry over the last couple of years.

What astounds me about the people of Tipperary is that not one person has come out to challenge Michael Lowry publically on the controversy surrounding his financial affairs. When Lowry was last on Tipp FM, the radio presenter was afraid to put any hard questions surrounding his affairs. Even looking at his Facebook newsfeed annoys me when I see people responding to his facebook statements with idiotic comments like [EMAIL="'F@ck"]'F@ck[/EMAIL] the Begrudgers Michael'. Do these people not realise that its politicians like Lowry that have the country in the way it is now?

I want to copy and print Lowry's last public release on Facebook as it is above all else absolutely comical drawing your attention to the part where Lowry says that 'no prima facie evidence was found to sustain any further investigation' against me. Just because no evidence is found doesn't absolve someone of guilt. It's the kind of stuff you'd expect to come out of Father Ted.

I would be grateful if anybody would be so kind as to print an accurate chronology of tribunals and scandals Lowry has been implicated in for my own personal amusement.

Lowry's Newsfeed

I welcome the fact that 388 orchestrated complaints made against me have been investigated by the Standards in Public Office Commission and have been dismissed as there was no prima facia evidence to sustain any further investigation.

Two journalists working in tandem wrote prominent features making exaggerated and unfounded claims about the value of my shareholding in lands at Wigan. Conor Ryan, Irish Examiner, had a headline article putting a ludicrous value of €6.7 million on the lands. As part of its investigation the Commission sought estimates of the value of my shareholding in the lands in Wigan from two UK, independent, professional valuers. The valuations put the value of my shareholding in the lands at less than €13,000.

Elaine Byrne of the Sunday Independent followed by deliberately activating the 388 complaints, claiming that my Dáil Register of Interests was in contravention of the Ethics in Public Office legislation and demandin...g an enquiry. The Commission commenced an enquiry and spent considerable financial resources fully investigating the complaints. I am pleased that the Commission has concluded its work and has found that these complaints were unfounded and without substance.

The Commission report found that the 388 complaints, with few exceptions, were phrased similarly. They also found a number of the complaints were submitted from un-contactable addresses, as correspondence from the Commission to the complainant was returned as ‘unknown at this address’. The enquiry also established that some of the filed complaints were lodged without the knowledge of the named complainant and that others indicated that they no direct evidence or information other than what they read in the newspapers.