Michael Lowry tax trial jury to resume deliberations

This report is a localnews.ie summary based on public court reporting and records; sources are listed below.

The jury in the tax-offence trial of Independent TD Michael Lowry and his company Garuda had gone home for the night and was due to resume deliberations on Monday at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court. The proceedings were reported on 22 June 2018.

Lowry pleaded not guilty to charges of filing incorrect tax returns. Garuda pleaded not guilty to knowingly delivering incorrect accounts and information for corporation tax in 2002, and denied making an incorrect corporation tax return for 2006 and failing to keep proper books. Lowry denied that those offences were committed with his consent or connivance or that he caused them.

A separate charge alleging that Lowry personally submitted an incorrect 2002 tax return had been dropped earlier in the trial.

The charges related to a commission payment of around €372,000 due to Garuda from Finnish company Norpe OY in 2002, but paid instead to a third party in the Isle of Man at Lowry’s direction. The State alleged the payment was kept off the books in 2002 and that Lowry and Garuda then tried to pretend it was made in 2006.

Judge Martin Nolan said the issue was what Lowry knew. He said Lowry’s explanation was that he had instructed a staff member to raise an invoice in 2002, assumed it had been done and that the money would automatically enter the company accounts. The judge told jurors they must acquit if they found that explanation reasonably believable.

Prosecuting counsel Remy Farrell said no invoice was issued, there was no paper record and auditors were not informed when inspecting the 2002 accounts. Garuda’s defence counsel Patrick Treacy said Lowry’s secretary had been told by Norpe that an invoice had to come from the third party, Kevin Phelan, rather than Garuda.