Chairman in stout defence of tribunal lawyer

The chairman of the tribunal, Mr Justice Moriarty, said that he had no hesitancy about accepting the "utter bona fides" and integrity of tribunal counsel Mr Jerry Healy SC after Mr Healy had been criticised by a witness, Mr Michael Walsh, an executive with International Investment and Underwriting Ltd (IIU).

Mr Justice Moriarty gave a robust defence of Mr Healy and the rest of his legal team after the second attack on the tribunal this week. On Monday Mr Dermot Desmond, owner of IIU, said that the tribunal had "lost the plot and needed to get back on track".

At the end of his evidence yesterday Mr Walsh criticised Mr Healy whom, he said, had a conflict of interest in relation to his work for the tribunal.

He said that if the integrity of anyone was going to be questioned, it should not be that of the civil servants who had conducted the competition for the State's second mobile phone licence.

Mr Walsh referred to Mr Healy having worked for Persona. Persona came second in the 1995 mobile phone licence competition. It is currently threatening to sue the State and has legal observers at the tribunal.

Mr Walsh said that everyone who came before the tribunal had their integrity questioned, although he did not know why this was the case. He said that he had "absolute confidence" in the integrity of the civil servants who had conducted the 1995 competition. It was not the civil servants' integrity which should be focused on.

He said that a person of integrity would have publicly declared that they had been part of the Persona team and had a conflict of interest. They would then have resigned from the tribunal. "Jerry Healy did neither of those things. In fact, I learned from the newspapers at the weekend that he was paid over €700,000 to investigate the assessors who had determined his client was second-best. Chairman, when a leading member of the tribunal is compromised, how can I or anybody else be confident in the integrity of any report produced?"

He said that the chairman had a reputation for fairness, and the only comfort he could have was that the chairman, and he alone, would be the author of the final report.

Mr Walsh said he felt very strongly about the matter. He had not discussed his intended statement beforehand with his legal team.

Mr Justice Moriarty said that Mr Healy had had a "limited and brief" involvement with Persona together with Mr Hogan [Mr Gerard Hogan SC, counsel for IIU], then a junior counsel, "in the context of a judicial review that did not come to fruition".

He said that this was made apparent to him, and the matter had been discussed and had been the subject of correspondence with lawyers for IIU and Telenor. He had "no hesitancy in finding that Mr Healy has behaved with the utmost integrity". He added: "I do not feel his position was compromised. I am extremely content, as I am with the rest of my legal team, with the very considerable endeavours he has put in, in assisting me in the presentation of evidence and examination of it."

This would be finalised in a "task which will be my ultimate responsibility and one I must undertake, to prepare a report". Even though he had for "several years" been seconded from his duties in the High Court, "on a basis that has been extensive and unsought", he still regarded himself as being bound by his judicial oath of office.

He said that Mr Walsh and Mr Desmond were capable, articulate and perceptive witnesses. He regretted that it had proved necessary to embark on observations which did not enhance or facilitate the ultimate task he had to attend to.