Michael Lowry
|
Michael Lowry TD |
|
|---|---|
| Minister for Transport, Energy and Communications | |
|
In office 15 December 1994 – 30 November 1996 |
|
| Taoiseach | John Bruton |
| Preceded by | Brian Cowen |
| Succeeded by | John Bruton |
| Teachta Dála | |
|
Assumed office February 1987 |
|
| Constituency | Tipperary |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
13 March 1953 Thurles, Tipperary, Ireland |
| Nationality | Irish |
| Political party | Independent (since 1997) |
| Other political affiliations |
Fine Gael (until 1997) |
| Website | www |
Michael Lowry (born 13 March 1953) is an Irish politician. He has been a Teachta Dála (TD) since 1987, at first representing the Tipperary North constituency and then, from 2016, that of Tipperary.
Lowry is a former Chairman of the Fine Gael political party and was Minister for Transport, Energy and Communications between 1994 and 1996. He resigned from his ministry in some controversy. Fine Gael barred him from standing for the party again. Thereafter he ran as an independent candidate, and has maintained his seat in the Dáil ever since. The Moriarty Tribunal concluded "beyond doubt" that Lowry was a tax evader and had assisted businessman Denis O'Brien's Esat Digiphone consortium in acquiring a lucrative mobile phone licence in the mid-1990s, during Lowry's time as Communications Minister. O'Brien went on to become one of the richest men in Ireland.
Lowry initiated a defamation lawsuit against an Irish Independent journalist, Sam Smyth, over an article that Smyth had written regarding the Moriarty Tribunal as well as comments that Smyth made on a TV3 show. The lawsuit was thrown out of several courts and Lowry was ordered to pay Smyth's legal costs. More recently his relationship with Kevin Phelan has come under scrutiny, with the emergence of a recorded conversation in which Lowry claims to have made an undeclared payment of €250,000.
Despite being the subject of a criminal investigation resulting from several scandals pursuing him from his time in office, he continues to be very popular in his constituency.
Lowry was born in County Tipperary and educated at Thurles CBS. He was elected to North Tipperary County Council in 1979. In the early 1980s he was a Gaelic Athletic Association administrator, and was the youngest-ever Chairman of the Tipperary GAA Board. He runs a commercial refrigeration business, Streamline Enterprises, that he founded in controversial circumstances in 1988. Later, as chairman of the Semple Stadium Development Committee, he was involved in raising the necessary funds for the refurbishment of the stadium in preparation for the All-Ireland Centenary Hurling final in 1984.
...
Wikipedia