Editing Fine Gael (section)

==Planning and payment tribunals==
The [[Moriarty Tribunal]] has sat since 1997 and has investigated the granting of a mobile phone license to [[Esat Telecom]] by [[Michael Lowry (politician)|Michael Lowry]] when he was Fine Gael [[Minister for Transport (Ireland)|Minister for Transport, Energy and Communications]] in the Rainbow Coalition of the mid-1990s. Lowry resigned from the Cabinet after it was revealed at the Moriarty Tribunal that businessman [[Ben Dunne (entrepreneur)|Ben Dunne]] had paid for an IR£395,000 extension to Lowry's [[County Tipperary]] home. Lowry, now an independent [[Teachta Dála|TD]], supported the [[Fianna Fáil]]–[[Green Party (Ireland)|Green Party]] government in [[Dáil Éireann]] until March 2011.{{citation needed|date=April 2024}}

It was also revealed in December 1996 that Fine Gael had received some £180,000 from [[Ben Dunne (entrepreneur)|Ben Dunne]] in the period 1987 to 1993. This was composed of £100,000 in 1993, £50,000 in 1992 and £30,000 in 1989. In addition, Michael Noonan received £3,000 in 1992 towards his election campaign, [[Ivan Yates]] received £5,000, [[Michael Lowry (politician)|Michael Lowry]] received £5,000 and Sean Barrett received £1,000 in the earlier 1987 election. John Bruton said he had received £1,000 from Dunne in 1982 towards his election campaign, and Dunne had also given £15,000 to the Labour Party during the 1990 Presidential election campaign.<ref>{{cite news |title=Irish Times article |url=http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/archive/1996/1205/Pg001.html |url-access=subscription |newspaper=The Irish Times}}</ref>

Following revelations at the [[Moriarty Tribunal]] on 16 February 1999, in relation to [[Charles Haughey]] and his relationship with [[Allied Irish Banks|AIB]], former Taoiseach Garret Fitzgerald confirmed that [[Allied Irish Banks|AIB]] and Ansbacher wrote off debts of almost £200,000 that he owed in 1993, when he was in financial difficulties because of the collapse of the aircraft leasing company, GPA, in which he was a shareholder. The write-off occurred after Fitzgerald left politics. Fitzgerald also said he believed his then Fine Gael colleague, [[Peter Sutherland]], who was chairman of AIB at the time, was unaware of the situation.<ref>{{cite news |date=17 February 1999 |title=AIB and Ansbacher wrote off Fitzgerald's £200,000 debt |url=http://www.rte.ie/news/1999/0217/fitzgerald.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121020020001/http://www.rte.ie/news/1999/0217/fitzgerald.html |archive-date=20 October 2012 |access-date=4 June 2010 |work=RTÉ News}}</ref>