The Dublin West TD Liam Lawlor faces the prospect of jail this evening after the chairman of the Flood tribunal stood him down from the witness box for failing to comply with the terms of a High court order. After four days of evidence, Mr Justice Flood said this evening it was now up to the High Court to deal with Mr Lawlor.
The High Court is expected now to decide whether or not Mr Lawlor is in contempt of court. If Mr Lawlor is judged to have been in contempt the TD could be held in prison indefinitely. The chairman's ruling came as Liam Lawlor was being asked about his credit cards. As with other matters raised with the TD over the past few days, Mr Lawlor said repeatedly that his credit cards had nothing to do with the tribunals terms of reference. Mr Justice flood intervened. He ordered Liam Lawlor to answer the question. When Mr Lawlor failed to do so yet again. Mr Justice Flood pronounced he had listened carefully to Mr Lawlor's evidence and it was clear the witness had failed to date to comply with a high court order to co-operate.
In those circumstances the chairman said, that he did not believe that he could further advance inquiries. Mr Justice Flood then said that it was now up to the High Court to consider the matter. Tribunal lawyers are expected to go to the High Court next week. Leaving the tribunal this evening Mr Lawlor said he would obey any ruing the High Court would make.
This follows the Lawyers analysis of 18 of the bank accounts that Deputy Liam Lawlor gave details of to the Flood Tribunal. The analysis showed that £4,659,000 was lodged to those accounts between 1983 to date. Tribunal lawyers said that £2,700,000 of this had been unaccounted for in the evidence Mr Lawlor had so far given and they asked him to account for it now. “I would be delighted to provide an explanation,” said Mr Lawlor, “a detailed written explanation but I need time.” He repeated this again and again as Tribunal lawyers pressed him for answers.
Mr Justice Flood said that he found it difficult to believe that anyone with such a net balance could not know where the money came from. He said he wanted an explanation and he insisted that that explanation had to come today. Mr Justice Flood said he would give him time to make a phonecall. Liam Lawlor contested the tribunal's figure. Mr Justice Flood said there was a simple way of checking it.
The lawyers were earlier asking Mr Lawlor about the details of his relationship with the ten companies that he has told them he was involved in. Mr Lawlor has said that he cannot be entirely satisfied that there are not other companies that he has failed to mention. Yesterday, the details of several other companies that Mr Lawlor had not told the Tribunal about emerged during questioning.
This morning, after going through all the companies that the TD has told them about, Tribunal lawyers asked him was he now satisfied that he had identified them all. Mr Lawlor replied: "Could I ask do you have any company that I haven't disclosed?" "You may certainly ask," said counsel for the Tribunal. "But you're not going to answer," Mr Lawlor said. "You're back on entrapment again today, it’s nothing else other than that," he added. Three of the companies mentioned today never traded yet thousands of pounds passed through their accounts.
In the Dáil today, the Fine Gael leader John Bruton said that Deputy Lawlor was not suitable to be vice-chairman of the House Committee on Ethics for which he receives £5,000 on top of his TDs salary. Deputy Bruton said that Deputy Lawlor had been nominated for that position by Fianna Fáil so he called on the Taoiseach to convene a committee meeting and have him removed.
Bertie Ahern replied that Deputy Lawlor got that job when he was in Fianna Fáil but he had since resigned and was now an Independent member. He said that it was a matter for that House Committee to decide on. He also said that he agreed with an earlier statement by all party leaders that everyone had a legal, moral and democratic duty to co-operate with tribunals. He had been advised not to go further than that, he said.
