The businessman Denis O’Brien has welcomed the decision by the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) not to pursue criminal proceedings arising from the Garda inquiry into the Moriarty tribunal report on payments to politicians. O’Brien acknowledged that the task facing the tribunal chairman, Judge Michael Moriarty, had been a difficult one but said the tribunal had rejected evidence “unhelpful to the case being prosecuted by them”. “I believe the Moriarty tribunal’s report was a clear manifestation of these fundamental structural shortcomings,” O’Brien said. Evidence gathered by a tribunal cannot be used in a criminal case and the Garda had to conduct its own, fresh inquiries. The report was “always flawed, not being based on hard facts or admissible evidence, but on conjecture, manipulation and speculation,” he said.

Source: The Irish Times March 12, 2026 08:53 UTC