Lowry denies "intermediary" suggestion
Friday, 2 November 2001 23:01
Michael Lowry has rejected a suggestion from lawyers for the Moriarty Tribunal that the late David Austin acted as an intermediary for a payment to him from Denis O'Brien.
Mr Lowry again asserted that £147,000 he got from David Austin in October 1996 was a loan, not a payment. The Tribunal heard that three people connected to Michael Lowry's evidence are refusing to appear before the inquiry.
In November 1996 Denis O'Brien told his friend and business colleague Barry Maloney that he had given £100,000 to Michael Lowry. One year later Denis O'Brien assured his friend that that payment had never actually gone through, it had got stuck with an intermediary. Denis O'Brien has maintained ever since that he was just spoofing.
However, today counsel for the Tribunal suggested to Michael Lowry that Denis O'Brien had indeed been telling the truth. Jerry Healy pointed again to a set of transactions in 1996 whereby money was passed from a Denis O'Brien account to Michael Lowry via David Austin, a set of transactions which appeared to have been cloaked in secrecy. In early 1997, after Michael Lowry was forced to resign, the money was returned to David Austin.
Today Michael Lowry rejected a suggestion that David Austin was the intermediary that Denis O'Brien had referred to, and that the money had indeed got stuck with him.
