Mayo view: Irish public has no tolerance for skeletons in political closets anymore

The timing of the revelation that An Garda Síochána has submitted a file to the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions following their investigation in the wake of the Moriarty Tribunal, which probed the awarding of the State's second mobile phone licence to businessman Denis O'Brien, is very intriguing from a political perspective.

The file relates to the role played by former government minister Michael Lowry who was found by the tribunal to have imparted information to Mr. O’Brien which helped him secure a licence which ultimately proved very profitable for the aforementioned investor.

This is the same Mr. Lowry who has been central to the formation of the new government through his negotiations with Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael on behalf of the Rural Independent Group of TDs, of which he is a member.

Adding to the fascination is the fact that one of the people he is closely negotiating with, FF leader Micheál Martin, made a statement in 2011 calling on Mr. Lowry to resign as a TD following the findings of the Moriarty Tribunal.

It was always going to be a high risk strategy by Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael to be involved in such important talks with Deputy Lowry, even with the proviso that he was never going to be a minister in the new administration.

Now, it appears, it is blowing up in the faces of Mr. Martin and outgoing Taoiseach Simon Harris at the worst possible time as the credibility of the government formation process has been called into question.

In a era when skeletons in political closets are no longer tolerated by the public, there are a lot of questions being posed by the media as the story gathers momentum.

At this point, the two main parties are caught between a rock and a hard place because walking away from the group of Regional Independent TDs will pre-empt somewhat of a political crisis within days of the scheduled election on January 22 of the new Taoiseach.

One can just imagine how Sinn Féin are preparing to exploit the situation in the event of it reaching a head, which it looks likely to do.

There is nothing quite like a political scandal over a historical issue to create the potential for the unexpected.

In this case, the Moriarty Tribunal was established in 1997 to examine payments to former Taoiseach Charles Haughey and to Michael Lowry.

However, the tribunal's second and final report, which dealt with payments to Mr. Lowry and his links with Mr. O'Brien, was not published until March 2011 and it found that the Tipperary TD had imparted substantive information to Mr. O'Brien, which was 'of significant value and assistance to him securing a mobile telephone licence for Mr. O'Brien Esat Digifone consortium in 1997’.

As recently as last August, Lowry was interviewed by gardaí investigating matters related to the tribunal.

The Criminal Assets Bureau’s investigation has been ongoing for several years. Previously, a 2017 garda file did not progress to the point of a direction for prosecution by the DPP.

And now the matter is resurrected at a juncture when it is capable of causing damage of an embarrassing nature in regard to politics at the highest levels.