The Independent Radio and Television Commission awarded the national broadcasting licence to Century Radio, but how much information did it have at its disposal when it made the decision in January 1989?
And how much control did the 10-member commission have over items that came up on its agenda, the order in which these were dealt with, and the decisions it ultimately made?
Yesterday, for the first time, the tribunal's attention was directed at the IRTC, the third point of a triangle whose other two are the then Minister for Communications, Mr Ray Burke, and Century. Mr Burke appointed the IRTC as an independent body charged with awarding radio and television licences in October 1988, but his influence was evident from the day it met.
The inaugural meeting was held in Newbridge House, Donabate, in the heart of Mr Burke's Dublin North constituency. One of its first decisions was to accept the minister's nominations for banker, solicitor and accountant to the commission.
The bank just happened to be the Ulster Bank in Dublin Airport, which had been Mr Burke's branch since 1974. The minister even called his banker on the day the decision was made to deliver the good news. Mr Burke's account at the branch has featured in earlier evidence; for example, he used it to remit £10,000 of the money he got from Rennicks to Fianna Fail. Just what use the branch was to the IRTC, which had offices in the city centre, is hard to understand.
Mr Burke's lawyers explained that the lawyer and banker were his constituents; the minister denies any involvement in the appointment of the accountants.
The two IRTC members who gave evidence yesterday knew little about the circumstances in which these nominations were made; one was late and the other unaware the nominations were made at the minister's request. Another early decision by the commission was to process applications for a national licence first, ahead of local radio franchises. But why? Pirate radio was the scourge of the minister's department at the time, and it operated on a local level. The best prospect of getting rid of the pirates was to get legal local stations on air as quickly as possible.
Then the commission opted not to have votes on the licence applications but to reach agreement by consensus. However, this form of decision-making would not apply to other matters. Again why, particularly when the legislation appears to point to a requirement for majority voting?
Subsequently, the commission decided to dispense with the services of its accountants when considering the applications for radio licences, thus leaving its 10 members without the benefit of independent financial advice on the merits of the various bidders.
Two of the commission's 10 members gave evidence yesterday but their recollections were muddy, understandably given that the events happened almost 12 years ago. Mr Vivian Murray said he felt Century was a strong front-runner almost from the beginning, whereas Judge Liam Devally seemed undecided until the end.
Judge Devally, who left the IRTC after his appointment to the Circuit Court a year after the Century decision was made, recalled that there were "no shrinking violets" at the meetings held to consider who should get the licence. But, because decisions were taken by consensus, there is nothing in the records to indicate how the members lined up for or against the different applications.
What was striking was how much the members bought into the minister's concept of "levelling the playing pitch" against RTE. As far as Judge Devally was concerned, "this was our baby" and there was little point in a new national station unless it got a cheap deal on transmission charges from RTE.