Author: gavin

US taxmen look to Ireland as alleged scams are revealed

This is something that has gone largely under the radar of the Irish media establishment. Perhaps the hacks think that all that corruption is in the past. It is certainly not. Sean O’Driscoll had a good piece on this, an exception to the rule. Highlighted bits too.

United States federal prosecutors in New York are continuing to investigate the use of Irish companies following one of the alleged biggest tax scams ever recorded in US history.

It has emerged that a company called Sligo (2000) Co was allegedly used by accountants KPMG to shelter tens of millions of dollars for wealthy US investors.

The US attorney’s office in southern Manhattan has indicted two senior accountants and a lawyer attached to KPMG for setting up bogus currency trades through Sligo (2000) Co Inc, which allegedly ran a tax “sham” through a Dublin-based company called Epsolon Ltd.

One Dallas financier and his wife put $39 million into the scheme. The couple claimed they did not have to pay US taxes on an Irish company but then allegedly reimported the money to the US just six days later, claiming a net loss for tax purposes.

They are also alleged to have converted their Irish company, Epsolon, to an American partnership in the same week.

According to records in the Companies Office in Dublin, Epsolon was incorporated on November 6th, 2000, but was dissolved on October 29th, 2004. Two directors are listed: Franklin Montgomery of 25 West 54th Street in New York and Keith Tucker of Turtle Creek Boulevard in Dallas, Texas. The registered office in Dublin was 2 Argyle Square, Morehampton Road, Donnybrook.

The Irish Times has been shown e-mails from one lawyer indicted in the scheme in which he allegedly tried to have the Irish shelter approved by his law firm without properly assessing whether it was legal.

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the US equivalent of the Revenue Commissioners, now claims that the couple who benefited from the scheme, Mr Tucker, a Dallas-based financier, and his wife, Laura Bynum Tucker, owe $21.7 million in unpaid tax and penalties for involvement in the scheme.

KPMG, the fourth largest accounting firm in the US, has admitted that it was involved in setting up illegal schemes through which wealthy clients avoided over $11.2 billion in taxes.

The three indicted for using Irish companies in the scheme were at the very top of KPMG’s tax service, including the former vice-chairman of KPMG’s tax services, a KPMG tax partner and a partner at the New York legal giant Brown & Wood.

While federal prosecutors in New York prepare to bring the three to trial in New York in September, their clients have sought to distance themselves from any wrongdoing.

In a petition filed at the tax court in Washington DC, the Tuckers have sought to overturn the demand from the IRS for $15.5 million in unpaid taxes, plus $6.2 million in penalties.

The IRS has insisted that the Tuckers must paid the tax and fines after deducting over $39 million from their tax bill in 2000 based on what the IRS claimed in court documents was a “sham” in which the Tuckers claimed to have lost tens of millions on currency trading though the Dublin company, Epsolon, but which was really a front for a tax-avoidance scheme.

In its petition to the tax court in Washington DC, the Tuckers say Sligo (2000) bought 99 per cent of Epsolon Ltd from a company called Cumberland Investment Ltd on December 18th, 2000.

Three days later Epsolon bought $156 million of “multiple foreign currency options” from an investment company and sold them back to the same investment company on the same day.

The Tuckers’ petition argued that the sale of the foreign currency options resulted in Epsolon gaining $51.26 million, which they claimed was subject only to Irish tax law.

However, six days after that sale Epsolon was converted to a partnership in the US, liquidating its Irish assets and recording a $39.5 million tax-deductible loss. The IRS claims this was nothing but a “sham” to avoid paying US tax.

The lawyer who approved the scheme, R.J. Ruble, a former partner of KPMG’s legal advisors Brown & Wood law firm, was “centrally involved” in the preparation of the Dublin scheme, according to the indictment.

The US attorney’s office claims that in a letter on June 28th, 2001, Mr Ruble told the Tuckers that the Irish scheme was the best way for them to avoid tax. Prosecutors have also obtained an e-mail that Mr Ruble sent in which he said that he would “need to write opinions to Sligo (2000) Company Inc”. Mr Ruble has since been dismissed by the firm.

Others indicted for the Dublin scheme include Jeffrey Eischeid, who was head of KPMG’s “innovative strategies group”, and Jeffrey Stein, who was vice-chairman of KPMG tax services.

KPMG has admitted that it was involved in a massive illegal tax scheme for years. It agreed in August 2005 to pay $456 million to the US government to avoid criminal prosecution, and admitted that it set up illegal tax shelters which allowed wealthy investors avoid $11.2 billion in taxes.

Seventeen KPMG executives and two other people are under indictment, and are expected to go to trial in September.

Last month, it emerged that President Bush’s former Irish ambassador, Richard Egan, invested $62 million in a KPMG shelter that the IRS described as an “economic sham”.

Mr Egan, who strongly denies any wrongdoing, is suing the IRS to recover the $62 million that was taken from him, and has argued in court documents that he was working on the advice of an unnamed “international accounting firm”.

Mr Egan had hoped to avoid having his name linked to the KPMG lawsuit but a New Jersey judge last month ruled that the media could name 61 investors, including Mr Egan, who are taking a lawsuit against KPMG.

Mr Egan, the billionaire owner of the EMC computer company, invested the $62 million with KPMG as soon as he became Irish ambassador, according to the IRS.

Mr Egan, one of President Bush’s most successful fundraisers, was Irish ambassador for just 15 months before he resigned.

Ireland remains the ‘Wild West’ of corporate regulation. Oh and as far as I know KPMG are still the independent adjudicators of the National Lottery. Would you trust them?

Senior garda in dramatic reverse of evidence

A Garda broke and changed his story. Up until now John White has denied mistreating two women while they were in custody. He has withdrawn his denial. This follows John Dooley’s breaking last week. If White lied about this, did he also lie about the McBreartys? He is also blaming his superiors for the way suspects were treated. White did not admit to all the claims made by the two women.

It is also alleged, amongst other things, that Detective Sargeant White paid a man £200 to stay in a McBrearty’s bar late in order for the Gardai to prosecute.

A senior Co Donegal garda has dramatically changed his evidence to the Morris tribunal by admitting for the first time that he mistreated suspects during interviews.

In an unexpected turn of events, Det Sgt John White faxed a new statement to the tribunal last Saturday in which he reversed earlier denials that he mistreated two women interviewees, Ra³isa­n McConnell and Katrina Brolly, in December 1996.

Ms McConnell and Ms Brolly, who were interrogated at Letterkenny Garda station during the Garda investigation into the death of cattle-dealer Richie Barron, allege that they were abused and assaulted.

Sgt White denied the allegations when investigated by the Garda Complaints Board in 1998 and he had continued to reject them in his contact with the tribunal until now.

Sgt White’s new statement emerged at yesterday’s sitting of the tribunal. Paul McDermott SC, for the tribunal, said it was an important development which had enormous significance for the evidence the tribunal was about to hear.

The women allege:

Katrina Brolly said she had her hair pulled out and was subjected to crude sexual references during her 12-hour detention at Letterkenny Garda station in December 1996. Ms Brolly broke down in the witness-box at one point as she recalled how gardaa­ threatened to put her children into care.

The tribunal yesterday began hearings into the detention of 12 people, starting with Ms Brolly, who were detained during the investigation of Mr Barron’s death. Gardaa­ at the time treated the death as a murder investigation, while the tribunal has since determined that he probably died in a hit-and-run accident.

Ms Brolly told the tribunal that Garda John Dooley and Det Sgt John White both called her a “lying bastard” and used a lot of bad language. However, she agreed that none of the interviewing gardaa­ had subjected her to pushing or shoving or to any other physical contact.

She was arrested after travelling to Letterkenny to visit her sister, Ra³isa­n McConnell, who had been arrested earlier. Between about 8pm and 8am, she was interrogated by a number of gardaa­ in separate interviews. At one point, her husband, Eunan, came to visit her, but she said Det Sgt White told him “that lying bastard is getting no visitors”. At various times, different gardaa­ told her she would spend seven or 14 years in jail unless she confessed, while another garda said she would be minding Ms McConnell’s children when she was jailed.

She said Garda Joan Gallagher gave her hair “a good sharp pull” on two occasions. Ms Brolly said she believed her hair had been pulled out, but she acknowledged that she did not see any hair on the floor. Garda Gallagher was behind her and the lights had been dimmed.

She was told “Richie Barron will be back to haunt you tonight”, to which Ms Brolly replied: “I wish to God he would and he’d tell us what happened.”

At one point, Garda Dooley told her she was too comfortable and ordered her to stand up. Her seat was pushed away and photos of Mr Barron’s body were thrust in her face. She said the photos showed wounds on Mr Barron’s face and hand, but she blanked them out.

Garda Dooley took a slip of paper from his back pocket and asked if she knew the name of the person named on it. When she said she did, he replied: “Did you know that Mark McConnell [her brother-in-law] is riding her?”

Ms Brolly said she told the gardaa­ she did not believe what they were telling her. She said she was totally shocked at what happened. She had stood up for herself on the night but said after she got out “I totally went to bits”.

Asked if she had considered making a false confession to end the ordeal, she said: “I was always brought up to tell the truth. There was no way I was going to tell lies just to save myself.”

Because of the nature of the Tribunal process, we are unlikely to see any criminal prosecutions relating to this.

Barristers asked to give details of secret talks with Dunlop

Is Dunlop protecting bigger fish? The question arose at the Tribunal this week. Readers may remember Dunlop’s dramatic reversal of strategy following Judge Flood’s asking him to consider his position, afterwhich Dunlop opened the flood gates on payments he allegedly made to councillors.

The Mahon tribunal has asked two former staff to provide details of a secret conversation they had with Frank Dunlop about allegations of corruption in the award of urban tax renewal incentives.

Tribunal lawyers have written to their former colleagues, barristers John Gallagher and Pat Hanratty, seeking information about the off-the-record conversation they had with Mr Dunlop during a private interview in 2000.

This follows a request from lawyers for the late Fine Gael councillor Tom Hand, who suggested that Mr Dunlop was protecting senior political figures by refusing to talk on the record about alleged corruption in this area.

David Burke, barrister, for Mr Hand’s estate, said Mr Dunlop’s interview with the tribunal lawyers was a private session which he believed would be kept under wraps forever. (A subsequent court decision forced its disclosure to interested parties.) Notwithstanding this, he had asked to go off the record.

“What was so sensitive that it had to be off the record?” he asked. What did Mr Dunlop know about corrupt practices with regard to tax designations? After Mr Dunlop replied that he couldn’t remember the content of his off-the-record discussions, Judge Alan Mahon said the tribunal would ask the lawyers involved.

Mr Burke claimed the witness was sacrificing “small fry” county councillors to protect bigger political fish from his allegations of planning corruption.

He questioned whether Mr Dunlop’s knowledge of corruption was limited to councillors.

“The answer empathically and irrefutably is no,” Mr Dunlop replied. “I’m not protecting anybody.”

Asked if he was aware of any corruption involving tax designations, Mr Dunlop replied: “Directly, no.”

Asked if he had indirect knowledge, he replied: “One doesn’t live in an unreal world.”

Ansbacher find cost Haughey €660,264

More on Haughey:

Charles Haughey lost £520,000 (€660,264) when the Ansbacher Deposits were discovered by the McCracken (Dunnes Payments) tribunal in 1997, it emerged yesterday.

Accounts within the secret deposits coded S8 and S9 belonged to Mr Haughey and were frozen along with the rest of the deposits when they were discovered. The money in Mr Haughey’s accounts was subsequently used to settle the tax liabilities of another unnamed taxpayer, the tribunal heard.

The tribunal heard that during negotiations with Mr Haughey’s tax advisers in 2002, the Revenue was told that Mr Haughey did not have access to the accounts, that they were not in his name, and that they should be considered dormant.

On Thursday, principal officer with the Revenue, Norman Gillanders, said the money in the S8 and S9 accounts had been used to settle the tax affairs of another taxpayer. A document shown yesterday stated that the balance in the accounts in September 1997 was about £520,000.

The tribunal was yesterday hearing further evidence in relation to the performance of the Revenue in raising taxes from Mr Haughey. As part of its negotiations with Mr Haughey’s agents in 2002, the Revenue drafted a schedule of known expenditures and receipts by Mr Haughey over the period 1977 to 1997.

Principal officer with the Revenue, Brian McCabe, told Jacqueline O’Brien SC, for the tribunal, that the Revenue wanted to calculate a figure to assess Mr Haughey’s liability to gift tax.

Accountancy firms ran a bill paying service for Mr Haughey since the 1970s but he also spent money through other channels. The Revenue’s calculations arrived at various figures for total expenditure between 1977 and 1997, from a maximum of £9.9 million to a minimum of £6 million. The Revenue and Mr Haughey’s agents, in negotiations, arrived at a “core” figure of £6.9 million in expenditure and agreed this figure could be viewed as representative of the total gifts received by Mr Haughey over the period. Mr Haughey’s salary from politics over the period was not included in the calculations as Mr Haughey cashed his monthly cheques since the 1970s and did not bank the money.

Mr McCabe said accounts received by the Revenue had indicated that “severance payments” received by Mr Haughey when he retired from politics, were used to buy deer worth £71,000 in 1993. In fact, the Revenue now believed, the money for the deer came from the S9 Ansbacher account.

As part of the 2002 negotiations, Mr Haughey’s agents were asked how he had funded his purchase of a boat and a holiday island in Co Kerry in the late 1970s. They suggested the money could have come from Mr Haughey’s borrowings from AIB.

The agents also said they did not know how Mr Haughey funded his holidays and whether he had received any gifts since 1997. They also did not know how Mr Haughey funded his expenditure during the period 1977 to 1984. The agents also had no information about a sterling £400,000 loan Mr Haughey took out from Guinness Mahon Cayman Trust in the early 1980s.

The Revenue calculated that the total amount received by Mr Haughey in the 20 years from 1977 included £2.12 million from Ben Dunne between 1987 and 1992.

Mr Haughey agreed to pay £3.94 million in settlement and the money was raised by the transfer of lands at Kinsealy, Co Dublin, back to Mr Haughey from his children and its subsequent sale.

Mr McCabe said that from the perspective of the Revenue, the outcome was satisfactory.

Have a think about these figures, and think about how much houses and living cost and during those dates. These were massive sums of money. In 1985 you could buy a large house for £30-£40k. Charles Haughey spent £4.1 million through his bill-paying service in the years 1977 to 1997. And yet we are told nothing was given in return.

The spending through the service for the following years was:

1985 -£189,000

1986 -£176,000

1987 -£203,000

1988 -£232,000

1989 -£325,000

1990 -£264,000

1991 -£342,000

1992 -£336,000

1993 -£302,000

1994 -£316,000

1995 -£441,000

1996 -£274,000

1997 -£118,000

John Maloney, Terence Wheelock

Two more names that have arose, both of whom died in Garda custody.

The family of John Maloney jnr (18), who died in 2003 after being detained in Rathfarnham Garda station, Dublin, had called for an inquiry into his death. Mr Maloney was found unconscious less than an hour after his release and died 11 days later in hospital. An inquest into his death returned an open verdict.

The family protested outside the Dail yesterday with the family of Terence Wheelock (20), who died in September 2005, three months after he was found unconscious in a cell in Store Street Garda station in Dublin.

Both families have called on the Government to set up investigations into the two deaths. A Garda spokesman said there was an inquiry into the death of John Maloney jnr which found all procedures had been followed and there was no need for a further inquiry.

If only the inquiry was public and independent. But it wasn’t. I think the question that has to be asked here is, if you are picked up by the Gardai for whatever reason, and you die in custody, should there not be an independent investigation in every instance? Otherwise question marks will always hang over the keepers of the peace. It is for their benefit as much as for ours.

Reynolds to be questioned on land purchase

Another former Taoiseach will appear before a Tribunal, Longford’s Albert Reynolds this time:

Tribunal lawyers say Mr Reynolds was a principal in a Guernsey-based company, Universal Management Consultants Ltd, which entered into negotiations to buy the lands in 1997.

The co-owner of UMC was Patrick Russell, a barrister who represents the late Liam Lawlor at the tribunal.

Four years earlier, the owners of the land, Rayband Ltd, had succeeded in having it rezoned from agriculture to light industry.

In 1997, Mr Russell proposed acquiring the land through a joint venture between UMC and a Derry-based building firm, O’Neill Brothers, according to yesterday’s statement by senior counsel Patricia Dillon, for the tribunal.

Mr Russell has told the tribunal that Tim Collins, a land scout with an architectural practice who introduced Frank Dunlop to Rayband, acted on behalf of Rayband and claimed to own 10 per cent of the development.

Mr Collins, who is a long-time associate of Bertie Ahern and a trustee of his constituency office, has denied Mr Russell’s claim. Documentation suggests he was to be paid up to £50,000 as a “contribution to landlord’s expenses” on closing the sale.

The joint-venture agreement provided for a payment of stg£600,000 (€869,500) by O’Neill Brothers to buy out an undisclosed “minority interest” in the site.

Haughey claimed to Revenue he lived on borrowings

Perhaps most interest, RTE TV news failed to report on the Moriarty Tribunal, it features no where in their archives. It finally was dealt with on Prime Time last night. Watch it here.

The IT front page from Friday:

Former taoiseach Charles Haughey told the Revenue in 2003 that he had not received any gifts of money since 1997 and was living on borrowings from the Irish Nationwide Building Society, it emerged at the Moriarty tribunal yesterday.

It also emerged that in 2002 Mr Haughey’s accountant, Des Peelo, told the Revenue that Mr Haughey was “dying” and wanted to settle his tax affairs.

The tribunal yesterday resumed hearings into the Revenue’s performance in raising tax from Mr Haughey.

Im going to quote a large exerpt here and highlight interesting bits:

The Revenue accepted a payment of £3.94 million (€5 million) from Charles Haughey in 2003 in settlement of an estimated tax bill of £5.5 million (€6.98 million), the Moriarty tribunal heard yesterday.

At the time the settlement was the largest ever made by a taxpayer, but Mr Haughey’s name did not appear in the quarterly list of tax defaulters.

Jacqueline O’Brien SC, for the tribunal, said this was because Mr Haughey’s settlement did not include penalties valued at greater than 15 per cent of the overall settlement. She said the Revenue applied a 100 per cent cap on the amount of interest Mr Haughey paid.

The Revenue has told the tribunal that the application of the cap was the “invariable practice” of the Revenue in Capital Gains Tax and gift tax (CAT) cases.

Ms O’Brien said the tribunal believed there was no obligation on the Revenue to apply the cap.

She said the gifts being taxed dated back to 1977, the “receipt of the gifts was shrouded in secrecy”, and not one gift tax return had been made.

Also, during this period Mr Haughey had the benefit of the gifts received, including the increase in the capital value of his lands at Kinsealy.

Ms O’Brien was reading an opening statement during resumed hearings into the performance of the Revenue in relation to raising taxes from Mr Haughey. An earlier £1 million settlement had been made in relation to payments identified by the McCracken (Dunnes Payments) tribunal.

She said a special Revenue team had been set up to deal with Mr Haughey. In 2001 the team conducted an intensive analysis of the information that was emerging from the tribunal. The first issue to be decided was whether the funds received by Mr Haughey should be subjected to CAT (40 per cent), or income tax. The Revenue decided that CAT was the appropriate tax. It also decided it would seek a negotiated settlement.

Mr Haughey had tax agents Paul Moore and Terry Cooney working for him, as well as accountant Des Peelo and Gore-Grimes solicitors. Mr Haughey’s agents said no tax should be sought until the tribunal had reported but the Revenue did not agree.

The tribunal heard that the Revenue looked at the period 1977 to 1997. It decided that as it did not know all the gifts of money Mr Haughey had received, it would use his estimated expenditure over the period as a “proxy”. It estimated the expenditure over the period at £6.9 million. It did not take Mr Haughey’s income from politics into account (an estimated £600,000) as he cashed his pay cheques and did not bank the money.

Different, higher expenditure estimates led to different higher estimated tax liabilities, but the £6.9 million figure was eventually agreed with Mr Haughey’s agents.

The Revenue noted the possibility that Mr Haughey could be prosecuted for failing to file certain returns. During the negotiations Mr Haughey’s agents said he had been under no obligation to keep books of account as he had not been conducting a trade.

Also, he was in poor health. For these reasons, it was hard to analyse Mr Haughey’s finances over the years. At one stage the agents offered to settle for £2 million. The Revenue estimated that Mr Haughey may have spent £9.9 million over the period in question, making for a potential tax bill of £6.5 million. However it did not think this was achievable. A settlement of between £3.25 million and £3.8 million was more likely, it decided.

On October 8th, 2002, an all-day meeting between the Revenue and Mr Haughey’s advisers took place. It agreed a “core expenditure” figure of £6.9 million. This would lead to a tax bill of £5.5 million, including 100 per cent interest.

After a break for lunch the negotiations resumed and Mr Haughey’s side made a final offer of £3.85 million. This offer was taken back to the board of the Revenue Commissioners. Mr Peelo was subsequently informed that the Revenue would settle for £3.94 million (€5 million) and this was agreed.

A deal was signed in March 2003.

And the question asked on Prime Time was why Haughey was treated with ‘kid gloves’. Why indeed, especially given the sale of lands at Kinsealy. Some of the payments to Haughey included:

A £300,000 “forfeited deposit” on a supposed land deal, from the developer the late Patrick Gallagher (left), in December 1979.

A further £516,000 from donors unknown at around the same time, used to clear Mr Haughey’s debt with AIB.

£170,000 from the hotelier, the late PV Doyle, between 1983 and 1986.

£50,000 from the wealthy Saudi diplomat, the late Mahmoud Fustok, in 1985.

Sterling £282,000 from Ben Dunne (left) in 1987, by way of a cheque made out to a company called Tripleplan.

Lodgments totalling £354,000 made to an NCB investment account from sources unknown.

Payments to Mr Haughey’s bill paying service totalling £100,000 that came from the Fianna Fail party leader’s account in 1986 and 1989.

£180,000 from Ben Dunne in November 1992, the so-called “Carlisle cheques”.

Three “interest free loans” from Dermot Desmond, for sterling £145,000 in total, given in the period September 1994 to September 1997.

Apparently the Revenue felt ‘weak’

The Revenue was “acutely aware” of the weakness of its position when seeking to raise taxes from Charles Haughey, a senior Revenue official said at the Moriarty tribunal yesterday.

Norman Gillanders, assistant secretary at the Revenue Commissioners, told John Coughlan SC, for the tribunal, about seeking to raise taxes from Mr Haughey arising from millions of pounds worth of payments to Mr Haughey identified by the tribunal.

Mr Gillanders said that what might appear to be common sense to the general public might not be the case in tax law. “Different conditions mean different payments are subject to different taxes.”

He said having considered the payments revealed in the tribunal, it was decided, with legal advice, that the payments did not give rise to income tax. Income tax is raised on income that arises from the conduct of a business or a profession, the rendering of a service, or income such as rent.

It was decided to seek to raise gift tax, or Capital Acquisitions Tax (CAT), on the money received by Mr Haughey. “If the money given to Mr Haughey was not amenable to gift tax, it would not be amenable to tax at all.” In order for a gift to be amenable to CAT, it must come from a donor who is domiciled in the State or be property that is in the State. The Revenue needs to know who gave the gift and on what date.

“Given the money trails revealed by the tribunal, it was clear enough to me that demonstrating [ the payments eligibility to CAT] would be no easy task,” Mr Gillanders said. He said the Revenue’s prospects of success would be “limited to a minority of the payments revealed by the tribunal” if it had to go to court.

There had earlier been a “dramatic demonstration” of the risks involved when the Appeal Commissioners had ruled for Mr Haughey in relation to CAT on the payments identified by the 1997 McCracken (Dunnes Payments) tribunal.

He said the Revenue drafted a “worst-case scenario” from the point of view of Mr Haughey when going into negotiations, but knew Mr Haughey’s agents would know such a settlement was not achievable. “You have to have a choreography of compromise,” he said. In a “doomsday scenario” where the Revenue had to go to court against Mr Haughey, it was confident it could procure “maybe a little bit more than £2 million”.

Still waiting for law enforcement

‘Former AIB chief is fined $15,000‘

For a millisecond after reading this headline I thought;

‘Could it be that IFSRA, the so-called Irish Financial Regulator, had finally decided to actually regulate?’

Then I realised, the article was reporting on the work of a real regulator, the American Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Since its establishment in May 2003, IFSRA has failed to bring a single person or organisation to account for fraudulent activity. And as many thousands of Irish citizens know to their cost; there’s no shortage of rip-offs out there.

Indeed, as far as I can ascertain, no financial regulator in the history of the State has ever taken effective action in response to the regular occurrences of criminal activity in the Irish financial sector.

Lori Addison, the AIB person fined by SEC, must be rueing the fact that she committed her fraud in a jurisdiction that actually enforces the law.

McDowell tells of 'grave concern' at allegations

Amidst all the hoopla of McDowell’s outburst, the news of allegations made against members of the Gardai went almost unnoticed. McDowell says he’s concerned.

“The allegations and indeed other allegations contained in the opening statement – if true – raise issues which can only be described as shocking about abuse and ill-treatment of persons in custody, deliberate violation of a detainee’s right of access to and privacy of communications with a solicitor, and gross abuses of constitutional rights of individuals.”

He said: “These issues have profound implications for our legal system and strike at the very heart of the democratic principles on which this State is founded. The people of Ireland, through Dail and Seanad a‰ireann, have charged the honourable Mr Justice Morris with the important and difficult task of getting to the truth of these matters. It is vitally important that everyone involved understand the importance of getting to the absolute truth. Let there be no doubt that it is the solemn duty of all those involved to assist the tribunal in whatever way they can and I reiterate and fully support its call this morning for that assistance.”

But what is he doing about it?

Court orders repossession of Aquatic centre

The High Court today ruled that Dublin Waterworld Ltd (DWL) deliberately breached the terms of its lease to operate the National Aquatic Centre. My question is what happens the €11 million due in rent?

Mr Justice Gilligan told the High Court that although the financial position of Dublin Waterworld had now been regularised, the court was making an order for Campus and Stadium Ireland Development (CSID) Ltd to repossess the €62 million centre.

CSID, the State company which owns the centre, awarded the lease in 2003. It had alleged that, unknown to it, DWL had transferred beneficial ownership of the lease to Limerick businessman Pat Mulcair on April 30th, 2003.

The court was told that Mr Mulcair then entered into an arrangement for DWML (Dublin Waterworld Management Ltd), a wholly owned subsidiary of DWL, to manage the aquatic centre.

The court found this constituted “wilful” breaches of the lease as did the failure to pay more than €11 million due in rent and VAT.

Mr Justice Paul Gilligan declared the 30-year lease must be forfeited.

Joan Burton has been seeking an explantion from Minister John O’Donoghue, good luck to her.

“The Minister must now clarify how Dublin Water World was enabled to enter into a lease and trust arrangement with regard to the Aquatic Centre, with business man Mr Pat Mulcair,” she said.

Ms Burton said she had already asked the Comptroller and Auditor General to conduct a review of the handling of the aquatic centre.

She said there have been a number of reports of structural problems with the complex including the fact that treated water consumption is far in excess of what was originally laid down in the design specifications, suggesting leakage problems.

Ms Burton said she had asked the Comptroller and Auditor General to conduct to conduct a review of the handling of this key piece of sports infrastructure.