At the High Court, lawyers representing the Flood Tribunal have dismissed as "totally unsustainable" a claim by the TD Liam Lawlor that he has complied with the Tribunal. The High Court is hearing arguments as to whether the TD should be obliged to appear before the Tribunal. The matter came before the courts after Mr Lawlor failed to obey a summons to appear and failed to produce documents the Tribunal had requested. The High Court is to decide this afternoon whether to oblige the TD Liam Lawlor to appear before the Flood Tribunal. The Tribunal also wants to examine financial documents belonging to Mr Lawlor.
The Flood Tribunal wants to question the Dublin TD about a range of allegations and information it has received. Among them allegations of corruption, bribery and faked invoices. It also wants to ask Mr Lawlor about his application under the tax amnesty. Last Tuesday Tribunal lawyers said that despite extensive correspondence with the TD over two years they had failed to secure any meaningful co-operation from him. But Liam Lawlor has disputed that and he says that he is willing to go before the Tribunal if he can first hear what if any allegations are being made against him.
At the centre of today's argument was an order the Flood Tribunal made last June for the discovery of documents relating to Liam Lawlor's finances. Liam Lawlor never complied with this order nor, as lawyers for the Tribunal pointed out today, did he contest it. When the order failed the Tribunal summonsed Mr Lawlor to come before it and produce the documents but he never turned up. This afternoon, counsel for Liam Lawlor said the order was what they called "over wide" it requested every document Mr Lawlor ever had relating to his accounts, his companies and the tax amnesty. Mr Lawlor, they said, was entitled to privacy. If the order had related to planning matters he would have no difficulty. The Tribunal has asked Mr Justice Smyth to support their order. It argues that in order to explore allegations of wrongdoing fully it needs wide latitude.
