Liam Lawlor
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Liam Lawlor (born 1945), former Fianna Fáil politician.
Liam Lawlor was born in October, 1945 in Dublin. He was educated at Synge Street CBS and the College of Technology. Before he entered politics he ran his own refrigeration company. In 1977 he was elected to Dáil Éireann as a Fianna Fáil TD. In 1981 he lost his seat, regeined it in February 1982, but lost it again in November 1982. Lawlor regained his Dáil seat again in 1987. That year he was appointed Chairman of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Commercial State-Sponsored Bodies. He resigned in 1989 due to his position as a director with a food company. In 1990 he was one of the first to speak out against the leadership style of Charles Haughey. This cost him dearly because in 1991 he lost his seat on Dublin City Council and in the 1992 general election he nearly lost his Dáil seat to Tomás MacGiolla.
Lawlor was the only local councillor who refused to go before the Flood Tribunal investigating planning irregularities in County Dublin. Since then he has admitted receiving sums of money from the lobbyist Frank Dunlop. After Fianna Fáil contucted its own internal investigation Lawlor resigned from the Party, however he continues to support the government in the Dáil. Lawlor has since appeared at the Tribunal on several occasions and was imprisoned in Mountjoy Prison for non-compliance with the investigation.