Businessman Denis O’Brien has received €5.8 million from the State Claims Agency for his legal costs in relation to the Moriarty Tribunal dating back as far as 2001, it has been confirmed.
The payment is a full and final settlement of his costs application, following an order by the tribunal in March 2021.
It is understood that the payment, first reported in the Irish Independent, is the largest of its kind ever to a tribunal witness.
The Tribunal of Inquiry into certain payments to politicians and related matters was established in September 1997, and examined payments to former taoiseach Charles Haughey and then-Fine Gael TD Michael Lowry.
Chaired by High Court Judge Michael Moriarty, his first report was published in 2006 and dealt with the former taoiseach.
It found that Mr Haughey received cash for favours and lived a life vastly beyond the scale of his earnings as a public representative.
The Tribunal’s second and final report was published in March 2011.
It dealt with payments to Mr Lowry, and in particular his links with Mr O’Brien.
Ireland’s second mobile phone licence was awarded to Mr O’Brien’s consortium Esat Digifone in 1995, when Mr Lowry was minister for communications.
The Tribunal’s report found it was “beyond doubt” that Mr Lowry imparted substantive information to Mr O’Brien, which it said was “of significant value and assistance to him in securing the licence”.
The report described Mr Lowry’s role as “disgraceful and insidious”.
It also summarised payments to Mr Lowry made or facilitated by Mr O’Brien, totalling £447,000 and support for a £420,000 loan, as well as donations by Mr O’Brien or his companies to Fine Gael.
The findings were strongly rejected by those at the centre of the conclusions.
Mr O’Brien said the report was fundamentally flawed and insisted he never made any payment to Mr Lowry.
Mr Lowry said the report was “factually wrong and deliberately misleading”, adding that Mr Justice Moriarty’s opinions were “not substantiated by evidence or fact”.
Mr Lowry’s dealings with the tribunal came to an end just over a year ago when he reached a settlement over his legal costs.
The 2011 report was referred by the government to An Garda Síochána, and the Criminal Assets Bureau began an investigation.
Fourteen years on, it will now be for the Director of Public Prosecutions to decide if any criminal charges will be laid against any individual as a result.
The final cost of the inquiry has still not been determined, but the latest figures published by the Government show that it has cost more than €71 million up to June last year.
