Why do they keep voting this clown into a position of power? Sigh.
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/weekend/2012/0505/1224315639183.htmlLife of Lowry The TD who went into the coldMarch 19 54 Born in Co Tipperary.
1971 Starts work as apprentice refrigeration engineer with Butler Refrigeration, in Thurles. By 1987 the company is carrying out a substantial amount of work for Dunnes Stores.
1979 Elected to North Tipperary County Council.
1987 Elected Fine Gael TD for Tipperary North. Leaves Butler Refrigeration.
August 1988 Garuda Ltd, trading as Streamline, is incorporated. During the year, Lowry does refrigeration work for Dunnes Stores, controlled at the time by Ben Dunne.
January 1989 Dunne tells Lowry he is ending the company’s contract with Butler Engineering and offers the work to Lowry. Streamline begins to supply services to Dunnes Stores, its only customer.
1990-1992 Lowry receives payments from Dunne that are lodged to accounts in Jersey and the Isle of Man. In 1992 Lowry purchases his house in Holycross; Dunne tells Foxhill Homes Ltd, which had worked on Dunne’s own house, to refurbish and extend Lowry’s new home. Dunnes Stores pays for work worth £395,107. Nothing in the Dunnes Stores books shows that the expenditure is for the benefit of Lowry.
1993 Becomes chairman of the Fine Gael parliamentary party. Avails of the tax amnesty.
December 1994 Appointed minister for transport, energy and communications.
1995 Denis O’Brien’s company Esat Digifone wins the competition for the second mobile-phone licence, which is run by Lowry’s department.
May 1996 Esat Digifone is issued with a mobile-phone licence.
October 1996 £147,000 is lodged to an account opened in Lowry’s name with Irish Nationwide in the Isle of Man.
December 1996 Lowry resigns in the wake of an Irish Independent report by the journalist Sam Smyth outlining the arrangement that Dunne had put in place for Lowry’s home.
February 1997 The McCracken tribunal is established to investigate the Dunnes payments. On the same day, the £147,000 lodged to the Isle of Man account is returned (to the businessman David Austin, now deceased, who had received the money from O’Brien).
June 1997 Lowry runs as an Independent in the general election and tops the poll in Tipperary North.
August 1997 McCracken report says of Lowry that it is “an appalling situation that a government minister and chairman of a parliamentary party can be seen to have been consistently benefiting from the black economy from shortly after he was elected to Dáil Éireann”.
September 1997 The Moriarty tribunal is established to investigate payments to politicians. A company law officer is appointed to inquire into Streamline.
1998 Lowry and Streamline make an initial payment – or payment on account – of €434,000 to Revenue.
March 1999 Lowry is involved in the purchase of property in Mansfield, England, for stg£250,000, with most of the funds coming from a London account belonging to O’Brien. The transaction involves O’Brien’s accountant Aidan Phelan, with whom Lowry had come into contact in the period after his resignation. Phelan told the tribunal the money was owed to Phelan by O’Brien.
September 1999 A UK company owned by Lowry agrees to buy a property in Cheadle, England, for stg£445,000. Again Phelan is involved in the transaction. Some money left over from the Mansfield transaction is used, as well as a loan from Woodchester Bank.
2001 The Moriarty tribunal learns about the English property deals and the Isle of Man account. Lowry tells the tribunal about the latter, though the tribunal later points out that by that stage it was likely to have discovered the account itself.
2002 Lowry tops the poll in Tipperary North in the general election.
2003 Lowry and Streamline pay €336,000 on account to Revenue.
2005 Lowry and Streamline make a final payment of €664,000 to Revenue.
2007 Lowry again tops the poll in Tipperary North and does a deal with the then taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, that includes his right to nominate three people to State boards.
February 2011 Lowry tops the poll in Tipperary North.
March 2011 Moriarty tribunal report finds that Lowry interfered in the 1995 mobile-phone licence competition to the benefit of Esat Digifone. It also finds that the £147,000 payment and the two English transactions were attempts by O’Brien to benefit Lowry and were “demonstrably referable” to Lowry’s interference in the licence competition.
2012 Following the publication of the Mahon tribunal report, the Government is criticised for having dealings with Lowry and O’Brien since the publication of the Moriarty report.
