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Sinn Féin wants gardaí to investigate Lowry
on 16/03/2013 00:00:00
He said he did not know if Mr Lowry had committed an offence under the Tribunal of Inquiry Evidence Act but there was enough information in the public domain to warrant an investigation.
Mr Doherty said he understood more complex probes, into the fallout from the Moriarty Tribunal report, were time consuming but this was a separate and more straightforward question.
"If the tapes are proved to be genuine and that Michael Lowry gave different evidence to the tribunal then the gardaí need to take action," he said.
Earlier this week Mr Doherty asked Justice Minister Alan Shatter if there was an investigation to see if Mr Lowry had committed an offence under the law governing tribunals.
In 1979 the Tribunal of Inquiry Evidence Act was amended to include a list of offences.
These said that it was an offence to willfully give "evidence to a tribunal which is material to the inquiry to which the tribunal relates and which [a person] knows to be false or does not believe to be true".
If it is considered a serious offence a person who is found to have given false evidence can be jailed for two years or fined up to €12,700.
However, if it is deemed to be a minor breach and the person is willing to have it dealt with summarily in the district court there is a fine of €635 available or a jail sentence of less than a year.
[url=https://docs.google.com/document/d/1B9SLjDBT-Zk72eBNdjr3qCZlYerH1YE_BM7bpwYAg9g/edit][url=http://www.irishexaminer.com/archives/2013/0308/world/lowry-paid-agent-250k-days-after-reference-retracted-224823.html]Mr Lowry could not be contacted following the broadcasting of the recording for the first time on Thursday night's Vincent Browne show. However, RTÉ reported that he would not be commenting.
The Independent TD has been in Cheltenham.
Earlier this week Mr Lowry told Tipp FM he would not respond to questions about the tape because he had not heard it to confirm its veracity.