Lowry development site listed for sale weeks before Criminal Assets Bureau interview
A deal was made to sell a British development site owned by Michael Lowry the same month the Criminal Assets Bureau (CAB) questioned him at a garda station last year.
The Moriarty tribunal found Denis O’Brien funded the site and that there was a “reasonable inference” O’Brien’s payment was connected to Lowry’s ministerial office.
Lowry maintained he only owns 10 percent of the 2.5-acre east midlands development site but the Moriarty tribunal said it was furnished with falsified documents to support his claim.
Lowry declared an interest in the property in his most recent Dáil ethics return though the registered owner, according to the British Land Registry, is an associate of O’Brien.
Gardaí attached to CAB interviewed Lowry last August about the Moriarty tribunal’s findings.
The Mansfield property was first advertised for sale in July 2024 and went sale agreed the following month. A staff member at the estate agent who managed the sale said she could not disclose the sale price.
‘Lowry was interviewed by gardaí that month’
Tyrone-based businessman and Denis O’Brien associate Kevin Phelan approached Michael Lowry in 1998 about investing in a property near Mansfield in England.
Lowry paid his English solicitor a £25,000 sterling deposit in December 1998 to secure the purchase of the former farmhouse set on 2.5 acres.
Lowry’s solicitor on 10 March, 1999 issued a completion statement requesting payment of £230,546.42 for the outstanding balance and other outlays.
At this point Kevin Phelan told Lowry he had approached another associate of Denis O’Brien – Aidan Phelan, no relation – about becoming a partner in the Mansfield purchase, according to Lowry’s testimony at the Moriarty tribunal.
Less than three weeks later Aidan Phelan withdrew £300,000 from O’Brien’s Credit Suisse account, with his permission. He transferred it to Lowry’s solicitor’s client account.
O’Brien and Aidan Phelan told the Moriarty tribunal this money was the latter’s professional fees for working on O’Brien’s business projects.
Lowry told the tribunal he and Aidan Phelan agreed on a 90/10 split, in favour of Phelan, on ownership of the Mansfield property.
The property’s deeds however were registered solely in Lowry’s name.
Lowry successfully applied for planning permission to build a hotel on the development site but the project didn’t go ahead.
Lowry gave evidence to the tribunal in the summer of 2002 that he had recently transferred ownership of the Mansfield site to Aidan Phelan at his request.
The Ditch has obtained records from the British Land Registry indicating Phelan paid Lowry £30,000 when the property’s registered ownership was transferred in March 2002.
Though the property’s registered owner, according to British Land Registry, is Aidan Phelan, Lowry however declared an interest in the site in the most recent Dáil register.
The Moriarty tribunal concluded that Lowry submitted false documents relating to his interest in the site.
The 2011 Moriarty tribunal report found “wholesale falsification” of documents made available to it by Lowry’s England-based solicitor designed to “conceal” the “full extent of his (Lowry’s) role and interest in the Mansfield transaction”.
“The source of the (sterling) £300,000.00, the preponderance of which funded the balance of the Mansfield purchase price, was the account of Mr Denis O'Brien with Credit Suisse First Boston, London,” the tribunal found.
“Mr Lowry received payment of that sum from Mr O'Brien, through the agency of Mr Aidan Phelan, in circumstances giving rise to a reasonable inference that the motive for making the payment was connected with the public office of minister for transport, energy and communications, formerly held by Mr Lowry,” said the Tribunal.
In late July last year estate agent WA Barnes first advertised the Mansfield site for sale and it went sale agreed in August.
Lowry was interviewed by gardaí that month in connection with the findings of the Moriarty tribunal.
He declined to comment.