Liam Lawlor (1 October 1945 – 22 October 2005) was an Irish
Fianna Fáil
Fianna Fáil (, ; meaning 'Soldiers of Destiny' or 'Warriors of Fál'), officially Fianna Fáil – The Republican Party ( ga, audio=ga-Fianna Fáil.ogg, Fianna Fáil – An Páirtí Poblachtánach), is a conservative and Christia ...
politician. He resigned from the Fianna Fáil in 2000 following a finding by a party standards committee that he had failed to co-operate with its investigation into planning irregularities, and subsequently came into conflict with the
Mahon Tribunal
The Tribunal of Inquiry into Certain Planning Matters and Payments commonly known as the Mahon Tribunal after the name of its last chairman, was a public inquiry in Ireland established by Dáil Éireann in 1997 to investigate allegations of c ...
.
Early life
Lawlor was born in
Dublin
Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of the Wicklow Mountains range. At the 2016 c ...
. He grew up in
Crumlin and was educated at
Synge Street CBS
Synge Street CBS (colloquially Synger) is a boys' non-fee-paying state school, under the auspices of the Edmund Rice Schools Trust, located in the Dublin 8 area of Dublin, Ireland. The school was founded in 1864 by Can ...
and the College of Technology, Bolton Street (now part of the
Dublin Institute of Technology
Dublin Institute of Technology (DIT, ga, Institiúid Teicneolaíochta Bhaile Átha Cliath) was a major third-level institution in Dublin, Ireland. On 1 January 2019 DIT was dissolved and its functions were transferred to the Technological U ...
). In his youth he played
hurling and was on the Dublin minor and the
Leinster
Leinster ( ; ga, Laighin or ) is one of the provinces of Ireland, situated in the southeast and east of Ireland. The province comprises the ancient Kingdoms of Meath, Leinster and Osraige. Following the 12th-century Norman invasion of ...
Railway Cup hurling teams. After college he went into the refrigeration business, running his own company.
Professional life
In 1974, he unsuccessfully stood as a candidate in the local elections to
Dublin County Council
Dublin County Council ( ga, Comhairle Contae Bhaile Átha Cliath) was a local authority for the administrative county of County Dublin in Ireland.
History
The county council was established by the Local Government (Ireland) Act 1898. Its headquart ...
. At the
1977 general election he was elected to
Dáil Éireann as a
Fianna Fáil
Fianna Fáil (, ; meaning 'Soldiers of Destiny' or 'Warriors of Fál'), officially Fianna Fáil – The Republican Party ( ga, audio=ga-Fianna Fáil.ogg, Fianna Fáil – An Páirtí Poblachtánach), is a conservative and Christia ...
Teachta Dála
A Teachta Dála ( , ; plural ), abbreviated as TD (plural ''TDanna'' in Irish, TDs in English), is a member of Dáil Éireann, the lower house of the Oireachtas (the Irish Parliament). It is the equivalent of terms such as ''Member of Parli ...
(TD) for the
Dublin County West constituency.
In 1979, he became a member of
Dublin County Council
Dublin County Council ( ga, Comhairle Contae Bhaile Átha Cliath) was a local authority for the administrative county of County Dublin in Ireland.
History
The county council was established by the Local Government (Ireland) Act 1898. Its headquart ...
.
At the
1981 general election he lost his Dáil seat in what was now the constituency of
Dublin West, regained it in
February 1982, but lost it again in the
November 1982 general election.
Lawlor regained his Dáil seat again at the
1987 general election, and was appointed Chairman of the
Oireachtas Joint Committee on Commercial State-Sponsored Bodies. He resigned the position in 1989 due to his position as a non-executive director of Food Industries, a company that wished to acquire the
Irish Sugar Company
Greencore Group plc is a food company in Ireland. It was established by the Irish government in 1991, when Irish Sugar was privatised, but today Greencore's products are mainly convenience foods, not only in Ireland but also in the United Kingd ...
. In 1991 he lost his seat on Dublin City Council, and at the
1992 general election he nearly lost his Dáil seat to
Tomás Mac Giolla
Tomás Mac Giolla (; born Thomas Gill; 25 January 1924 – 4 February 2010) was an Irish Workers' Party politician who served as Lord Mayor of Dublin from 1993 to 1994, Leader of the Workers' Party from 1962 to 1988 and President of Sinn Féin ...
of the
Workers' Party. It is widely believed that Mac Giolla was cheated by Fianna Fáil in the election; the emergence of information that the since disgraced and jailed
George Redmond
George Redmond (c. 1924 – 17 February 2016) was an Irish Assistant City and County Manager until his retirement on 23 June 1989 at the age of 65. He spent his entire career working for the Dublin local authorities commencing as a clerk in Dublin ...
was one of the local government officials who conducted the election count has added weight to this view.
Lawlor was one of a number of local councillors who were called as witnesses before the
Mahon Tribunal
The Tribunal of Inquiry into Certain Planning Matters and Payments commonly known as the Mahon Tribunal after the name of its last chairman, was a public inquiry in Ireland established by Dáil Éireann in 1997 to investigate allegations of c ...
investigating planning and payments in
County Dublin
"Action to match our speech"
, image_map = Island_of_Ireland_location_map_Dublin.svg
, map_alt = map showing County Dublin as a small area of darker green on the east coast within the lighter green background of ...
. He admitted receiving sums of money from the lobbyist
Frank Dunlop which he stated were political donations and not bribes.
Lawlor was also a European member of the controversial private political group, the
Trilateral Commission
The Trilateral Commission is a nongovernmental international organization aimed at fostering closer cooperation between Japan, Western Europe and North America. It was founded in July 1973 principally by American banker and philanthropist David ...
.
Corruption
In the light of allegations of planning corruption, Fianna Fáil established an internal committee on Standards in Public Life. The committee interviewed a number of party members, including Lawlor, but eventually found that Lawlor had failed to co-operate with it by not naming an individual who had furnished him with a donation. On the eve of publication of the committee report in June 2000, Lawlor resigned from the party; however he continued to support the government in
Dáil Éireann. He did not stand at the
2002 general election. Lawlor appeared at the
Flood Tribunal several times and was imprisoned on three occasions (in January 2001, January 2002 and February 2002, for a total of six weeks) in
Mountjoy Prison
Mountjoy Prison ( ga, Príosún Mhuinseo), founded as Mountjoy Gaol and nicknamed ''The Joy'', is a medium security men's prison located in Phibsborough in the centre of Dublin, Ireland.
The current prison Governor is Edward Mullins.
History
...
for
contempt of court arising from Orders of the High Court requiring him to co-operate with the tribunal. The final report of the Tribunal, eventually chaired by Justice Alan Mahon, was published on 22 March 2012.
On 7 February 2002 Lawlor was released from jail to make a Dáil appearance during which he ignored unprecedented all-party calls for his resignation. In what the ''
Irish Independent'' described as "one of the most sensational days in the House", Lawlor was released temporarily by the
High Court to mount his own defence during an hour-long debate. Taken into
Leinster House
Leinster House ( ga, Teach Laighean) is the seat of the Oireachtas, the parliament of Ireland. Originally, it was the ducal palace of the Dukes of Leinster. Since 1922, it is a complex of buildings, of which the former ducal palace is the core, ...
in a prison van, Lawlor sat alone at the rear of the Chamber while the five party leaders, in turn, called on him to step down. Instead Lawlor made an aggressive defence of his own position during a 20-minute speech while making no reference at all to the unprecedented joint motion.
Taoiseach
The Taoiseach is the head of government, or prime minister, of Ireland. The office is appointed by the president of Ireland upon the nomination of Dáil Éireann (the lower house of the Oireachtas, Ireland's national legislature) and the o ...
Bertie Ahern
Bartholomew Patrick "Bertie" Ahern (born 12 September 1951) is an Irish former Fianna Fáil politician who served as Taoiseach from 1997 to 2008, Leader of Fianna Fáil from 1994 to 2008, Leader of the Opposition from 1994 to 1997, Tánaiste a ...
, who himself would subsequently be forced to resign over corruption allegations, said Lawlor had repeatedly let politics down and his position was untenable. Lawlor, he said, had been committed to prison three times and political life was "cheapened" by this. No vote was required as the decision to ask him to resign was unanimous. Lawlor was released by the High Court for about two hours on third day of his 28-day sentence for not co-operating with the Flood Tribunal. As the Dáil sat at 10.30am, Lawlor's legal advisers were petitioning the High Court to allow him make his own case to his fellow TDs. High Court president Justice Joseph Finnegan granted the request but laid down strict conditions on Lawlor's release, saying he was to be taken from Mountjoy to Leinster House, stay for the debate and then be returned to jail.
Death
Lawlor was killed on 22 October 2005, when the
Mercedes-Benz
Mercedes-Benz (), commonly referred to as Mercedes and sometimes as Benz, is a German luxury and commercial vehicle automotive brand established in 1926. Mercedes-Benz AG (a Mercedes-Benz Group subsidiary established in 2019) is headquartere ...
car he was being driven in on the way from
Sheremetyevo International Airport
Sheremetyevo Alexander S. Pushkin International Airport ( rus, links=no, Международный аэропорт Шереметьево имени А. С. Пушкина, p=ʂɨrʲɪˈmʲetʲjɪvə ''Mezhdunarodny aeroport Sheremetyevo imen ...
crashed into a concrete street light on the
Leningrad Shosse, the main road between
Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...
and Moscow, twenty-three kilometres from Moscow. Lawlor had been travelling with Julia Kushnir, a Ukrainian legal assistant, aged 29, confirmed by the Lawlor family to be working as Lawlor's
interpreter in Russia. She was injured in the crash that killed Lawlor. The driver, a Russian businessman, Ruslan Suleymanov, was fatally injured, when he swerved the car to avoid a man and a woman who ran out onto the road in front of it.
The funeral of Lawlor was held in
Lucan on 26 October 2005.
False media claims about the accident
The Russian police initially reported that the woman in Lawlor's car may have been a sixteen-year-old prostitute. The report was the lead in a number of Sunday newspapers. The ''
Sunday Independent'' editor
Aengus Fanning apologised to the Lawlor family for the report, following a public outcry on the reportage and condemnation of the publication from the
National Union of Journalists
The National Union of Journalists (NUJ) is a trade union for journalists in the United Kingdom and Ireland. It was founded in 1907 and has 38,000 members. It is a member of the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ).
Structure
There is ...
. The ''
Sunday Tribune'', the ''
Sunday World'', ''
The Observer
''The Observer'' is a British newspaper published on Sundays. It is a sister paper to ''The Guardian'' and '' The Guardian Weekly'', whose parent company Guardian Media Group Limited acquired it in 1993. First published in 1791, it is the ...
'', and a number of British
tabloids also published the claim. ''
The Observer
''The Observer'' is a British newspaper published on Sundays. It is a sister paper to ''The Guardian'' and '' The Guardian Weekly'', whose parent company Guardian Media Group Limited acquired it in 1993. First published in 1791, it is the ...
'' initially refused to apologise for the error, but on the Tuesday following the accident, the newspaper issued a statement saying that "serious discrepancies" had arisen in the story it had published, and admitted that it had erred,
removing the story from its website. The controversial nature of the coverage led to calls for a body to regulate and oversee standards in the Irish press similar to the
Press Complaints Commission
The Press Complaints Commission (PCC) was a voluntary regulatory body for British printed newspapers and magazines, consisting of representatives of the major publishers. The PCC closed on Monday 8 September 2014, and was replaced by the Inde ...
in the UK.
See also
*
List of members of the Oireachtas imprisoned since 1923
This is a list of members of the Oireachtas (National Parliament of Ireland)The two Houses of the Oireachtas are: Dáil Éireann (lower) and Seanad Éireann (upper). who served a prison sentence or were interned since 1923 in any jurisdiction be ...
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lawlor, Liam
1945 births
2005 deaths
Dublin inter-county hurlers
Councillors of Dublin County Council
Fianna Fáil TDs
Independent TDs
Members of the 21st Dáil
Members of the 23rd Dáil
Members of the 25th Dáil
Members of the 26th Dáil
Members of the 27th Dáil
Members of the 28th Dáil
Politicians from County Dublin
Road incident deaths in Russia
People educated at Synge Street CBS
People from Crumlin, Dublin