Civil servants 'had misgivings'

Documents aired at the Moriarty tribunal show misgivings among some of the civil servants charged with choosing the winner of the 1995 mobile phone competition right up to the announcement of the winner.

However, the lead consultant to the process Prof Michael Andersen told Michael McDowell SC, for the tribunal, that he believed the civil servants who drafted the documents may have been “covering their backs.”

He said he was a former civil servant and he believed the documents were created by the civil servants as “life insurance.”

He also said that at the time there was discussion of an upcoming position for a telecoms regulator and there may have been some “struggling” between civil servants who were interested in the position.

A note from the time by civil servant Ed O’Callaghan recorded his view that, at the time the result was announced on October 25th, 1995, there had been “no vote – effectively no decision by the project team” that was to have chosen the winner.

Prof Andersen said he was surprised by this but noted that the memo expresses frustration. “It is a frustrated civil servant.”

He said he had not known of a meeting on October 23rd, 1995 where some members of the group went to see the then secretary general of the Department of Transport, Energy and Communications, John Loughrey, and it was agreed more time would be given to the group.

However the then communications minister Michael Lowry announced that Esat Digifone had won the competition two days later.

On October 23rd, some members of the regulatory group in the department wrote a memo stating they could not justify the result on the basis of the draft report they had at that time. Prof Andersen said he could not remember being told this.

He said he was “shellshocked” when at a meeting on October 23rd, Sean McMahon of the regulatory section in Mr Lowry’s department said he was not in favour of the idea of Esat winning the competition. This was because of the section’s earlier experience with Esat’s founder, Denis O’Brien, in relation to landline issues. Prof Andersen said the matter was not one of the evaluation criteria.

Mr Lowry was told the outcome of the process before it could be considered by a meeting of the steering group that was charged with selecting the winner.

Asked if he considered this to be appropriate Prof Andersen said the competition was an important decision and he would not be surprised if the minister was interested in how it was proceeding.

Prof Andersen said earlier today he was not told that Dermot Desmond’s IIU Ltd was underwriting the Esat Digifone consortium.

A letter received from IIU in the course of the licence competition was returned to Esat founder Denis O’Brien by Martin Brennan, the civil servant who was heading up the group that was evaluating the bids, as the date for submissions to the competition had passed.

Prof Andersen said he was not told of the letter. He said Mr Brennan’s action was in accordance with what he believed should have been done.

At one stage the Danish consultant disagreed with a statement from Mr McDowell concerning changes to the weightings system used in the competition. "I am saying to you again and again that your instructions from the tribunal are wrong," he said.