Civil servant never saw final report on phone licence

A civil servant who was a member of the project team which selected the winner of the competition for the State's second mobile phone licence never saw the final report on the competition until shown it by the tribunal.

The tribunal was shown a note Mr Ed O'Callaghan wrote for himself in 1995 in which he recorded a chronology of events in the run-up to the announcement that Esat Digifone had won.

The document said there was no vote by the project team which selected the winner and "effectively no decision by the project team".

However, he said this was a reference to the finalisation of the report on the selection process rather than a reference to the outcome of the process.

Mr John Coughlan SC, for the tribunal, put it to Mr O'Callaghan that he had written the note because he was uncomfortable or unhappy with what had happened and so that if anything transpired later he would be able to say he was "not the one who was accountable for the decision".

Mr O'Callaghan said he would go along with some of what Mr Coughlan had said. He had written the note to bring clarity to his own mind and so that if he was asked about what had happened it would be an aid to his memory.

He said he was working on a lot of other issues at the same time and wanted to set out what had happened.

The note was written following the announcement on October 25th, 1995, that Esat Digifone had won the licence competition. Mr O'Callaghan, a civil servant in the telecommunications and radio (regulatory) division of the Department of Transport, Energy and Communications at the time, said the note had remained among a bundle of papers in his office in the years since it was written.

The note recorded that on October 23rd , 1995, Mr O'Callaghan believed the team had been given a further week to finalise its report on the competition. However, on the following day he learned that the outcome of the process was to be brought to government the following day.

A meeting of the team was held that day, and amendments to the draft report were agreed and faxed to consultants in Denmark overnight with a view to producing a final report the next day. Mr O'Callaghan left the meeting at 7.15 p.m. believing a meeting would be held the next day to sign off on the completed or composite report.

However, no meeting took place on the 25th. He learned that the decision was to be announced after Mr Jarlath Burke, a solicitor with Esat Telecom, contacted a colleague in the division, Mr Seán McMahon, to ask the purpose of a press conference being held that afternoon and to which a reporter from 98FM had been invited. Mr Burke was not told the purpose of the press conference.

After the phone call Mr McMahon rang the Department's press office and was told the purpose of the press conference.

Mr Michael Lowry held a press conference to announce the winner that afternoon. Mr O'Callaghan in his note recorded: "No signing off on report. We had no final report. No consensus asked for. No vote - effectively no decision by project team".

Mr O'Callaghan said he believed the reference to consensus was a response to a statement to the press by the minister or the Department to the effect that there had been consensus. Mr Coughlan said the statement had been a reference to consensus in relation to the result of the competition.

Mr O'Callaghan said the reference to "effectively no decision by project team" might sound very dramatic, but he would draw a distinction between the result and the report. "When I say 'no decision by the project team' I am referring to the signing off on the report, not to the result." Mr O'Callaghan said he wrote the note and left it in his private papers.

Before the document was handed over to the tribunal he sought advice on his own initiative from a solicitor as to whether it was discoverable to the tribunal. He was told it was. He then raised the issue with the Department and believes the Chief State Solicitor's office gave advice.

Mr O'Callaghan said he was "more than miffed" when he wrote the report as he had first learned that they were not to get an extra week to consider the report, and then learned that there was to be no meeting to sign off on the composite report.

He felt there was a lack of clarity in the narrative parts of the report and that this may have been due to the English used by the Danish consultants. He said he felt it was not clear from the narrative how the result was arrived at. He is to continue his evidence when the tribunal resumes on Tuesday.