Sometimes, you have to sit back and remind yourself of the facts and the findings – and, when it comes to Michael Lowry, there are a lot of facts and a lot of findings. 

The report of the Moriarty Tribunal is a good place to start. 

The tribunal found that Lowry, then minister for communications, delivered the State’s second mobile phone licence for the businessman Denis O’Brien. It said O’Brien later sought to confer a material benefit on Lowry.

It also found that O’Brien transferred £477,000 (€569,000) to various Lowry-controlled accounts, arranged for a US$50,000 loan to Fine Gael (it was returned), and supported Lowry in obtaining a £420,000 bank loan. Mr Justice Michael Moriarty found that the payments were “demonstrably referable to the acts and conduct” of Lowry while he was minister.

Elsewhere, the report states that Lowry tried to use his influence to double the rental value of a building part-owned by businessman Ben Dunne and leased to the then State-owned Telecom Éireann. 

If this attempt had succeeded, the tribunal found it would have doubled the value of Dunne’s building from IR£5.4 million (€6.86 million) to IR£12.75 million (€16.19 million).

“What was contemplated and attempted on the part of Mr Dunne and Mr Lowry was profoundly corrupt to a degree that was nothing short of breathtaking,” the tribunal report said.

“What was reprehensible about his actions was that the tenant of the building was Telecom Éireann, of which, as minister for communications, Mr Lowry was the ultimate shareholder.”

Another place to look is the 2016 case at the Dublin Circuit Criminal Court when Lowry and a refrigeration company he controls, Garuda, were convicted of two charges each of delivering an incorrect corporation tax return and failing to keep a proper set of records.

A more serious tax charge against the politician was dropped during the trial and the jury failed to reach a decision in regard to other charges, which the State did not then pursue.

Lowry and Garuda were fined a total of €25,000 for tax offences, while Lowry was disqualified from acting as a company director for three years. Judge Martin Nolan said he did not believe a custodial sentence was warranted. Nor did he think community service was apt.

At the beginning of the trial, Remy Farrell, a barrister for the prosecution, alleged that Lowry had cooked the books of his company Garuda, not once but twice – like refried beans, he said. 

I teased my way through the case in some detail in a recent piece, and the article is outside of the paywall.

So too an essay by Sam Smyth, one of the country’s finest journalists and a man who was sued twice by Lowry for his dogged coverage of the politician’s activities. Again, we have taken down the paywall on the piece for this weekend. 

“Lowry broke a sacred trust with the Irish people as a government minister, as was repeatedly highlighted by the Moriarty Tribunal,” Sam wrote. 

And yet, despite all of this, Lowry was a central architect in the formation of this government and in the election of the Ceann Comhairle Verona Murphy. 

To keep him and his government-supporting colleagues on side, the government has pushed through rule changes on speaking rights. 

I think the Government has erred here. This issue cut through more than they realised; most people see it for what it is, a stroke designed to ensure the working coherency of government. You can’t be on the government and opposition simultaneously, despite the arguments of the changing nature of parliamentary democracy that have ben eschewed by Government TDs.

Last week, as the controversy spiked, Lowry was photographed giving a two-fingered gesture towards People Before Profit-Solidarity TD Paul Murphy. He insisted he was just beckoning Murphy to come over for a chat.

In a statement, he said it was “not made with malicious intent”.

If the government thinks its relationship with Lowry will get easier, it is sorely mistaken. 

Persona, the company that lost out on the lucrative mobile phone licence all those years ago, is suing the State for damages. The case will likely be heard later this year. The findings of Moriarty cannot be used, but the evidence given to it certainly can (the State, as it happens, accepts the findings yet is defending the case).

At a time when Lowry is crucial to the current government, his role in a past one will be front and centre again. And like on the issue of speaking rights, the State will once again be taking his side.