Thomas ‘Slab’ Murphy pleads not guilty to tax offences

Thomas ‘Slab’ Murphy

Local republican Thomas ‘Slab’ Murphy pleaded not guilty to tax offences at the Special Criminal Court in Dublin today.

Mr Murphy (66), of Ballybinaby, Hackballscross, Co Louth, denied nine offences and replied “not guilty” when the indictment was put to him by the court registrar.

Wearing a pink shirt, green zipper jacket and brown trousers, Mr Murphy was accompanied by members of his family for the 30 minute hearing.

Mr Murphy is being prosecuted on foot of an investigation by the Criminal Assets Bureau.

The nine charges allege that he failed to furnish a return of his income, profits or gains or the source of his income, profits or gains to the Collector General or the Inspector of Taxes for the years 1996/97 to 2004.

He was returned for trial to the Special Criminal Court in 2008 from Dundalk District Court and he challenged the return at the High Court in November 2008.

The High Court found that Mr Murphy’s rights had been breached but ruled that the trial should go ahead.

Mr Murphy’s counsel Mr John Kearney QC applied to the court to adjourn the trial until Thursday. He said that there had been “rolling disclosure” in the case and that neither he nor his junior had had access to thousands of pages of disclosure.

Counsel said that the short adjournment would allow the defence and prosecution to consider issues of admissibility in the trial and this could lead to “a considerable tranche of evidence” not troubling the court.

Prosecuting counsel Mr Paul Burns SC said that there had been a lot of disclosure in recent days and he agreed that the trial should be adjourned until Thursday.

He told the court that he was hopeful that the trial could be completed within the three weeks allocated for it in the list.

Mr Justice Paul Butler, presiding with Judge O’Hagan and Judge Ryan, said the court would adjourn the trial until Thursday.

Source: The Irish Times

373 convictions for tax offences in Louth over 13 year period

There were 303 tax offence cases in Louth per 100,000 of population between 2002 and 2014, according to new figures from the RTÉ Investigation unit.

In that 13 year period there were 373 convictions.

In both cases this is around the middle of the table when compared to other counties.

County Roscommon had the highest rate of convictions by far, where the number of cases per 100,000 of population was 671. That was almost ten times higher than the lowest in Kilkenny, where the rate was just 68 per 100,000.

High rates were recorded across the North West and Midlands where Longford, Leitrim, Offaly, and Donegal joined Roscommon to make up the top five.

There were more than 11,000 convictions in total across the thirteen years of figures that we analysed.

Dublin, chiefly because of its massive share of the national population, registered the highest number with a total of 2,533 cases while Kilkenny was lowest with just 65.

The county with the next highest number of cases after Dublin was not one of the major urban centres as might have been expected but Donegal, where there were 864 cases.

You can read the full article here.

Thomas ‘Slab’ Murphy to face trial on tax offences in October 2015

Thomas ‘Slab’ Murphy

The Special Criminal Court in Dublin has fixed a date next year for the trial of prominent republican Thomas “Slab” Murphy on tax offences.

Earlier this month the Supreme Court unanimously rejected a challenge by Mr Murphy to the validity of a 2007 certificate of the Director of Public Prosecutions directing his trial before the non-jury Special Criminal Court rather than the ordinary courts.

Murphy (64), of Ballybinaby, Hackballscross, Co Louth is being prosecuted on foot of an investigation by the Criminal Assets Bureau. The nine charges allege that he failed to furnish a return of his income, profits or gains to the Collector General or the Inspector of Taxes for the years 1996/97 to 2004.

Yesterday prosecuting counsel Mr Paul Burns SC applied to the three judge court to fix a date for Murphy’s trial.

But Murphy’s counsel Mr Tony Mc Gillicuddy BL said that there were matters arising from the Supreme Court judgment that needed further instructions from Mr Murphy. He applied for a further remand.

Mr Justice Paul Butler, presiding, said that the court would fix October 6th, 2015 as the date for Murphy’s trial. The judge warned Murphy that if he wished to furnish an alibi evidence he would have to furnish details of that alibi within fourteen days. Murphy was remanded on continuing bail until the trial.