Consultant unfazed that Lowry told of bids

THE LEAD consultant to the 1995 mobile phone licence competition said he had no difficulty with the former minister for communications Michael Lowry being told of the ranking of the bids prior to the completion of the process.

Giving evidence to the Moriarty tribunal, Michael Andersen was asked about a note of a meeting of October 9th, 1995, where the group that was to decide the winner of the competition was to discuss a draft result. The note records how the chairman of the group, civil servant Martin Brennan, said the minister had been told “the ranking of the top two applicants”.

At that stage, following a meeting in Copenhagen on September 28th attended by Mr Brennan, Fintan Towey, Prof Andersen and another Danish consultant, Esat Digifone was in the lead and Persona was second.

Prof Andersen said he had no difficulty in principle with the minister being told and he had seen this occur in other competitions.

Mr Justice Moriarty said Mr Lowry had been told Esat was in the lead but the project team could have changed the ranking. Prof Andersen said he presumed the civil servant would have qualified his statement to say the final report had not yet been adopted.

Senior counsel John O’Donnell, for the departments of Communications and Finance, said a hypothesis being explored by the tribunal was that Mr Lowry, knowing that his “favoured” applicant was ahead, could have told the civil servants to accelerate the process.

However, Prof Andersen said he and his associates were already under pressure to produce their draft and final reports by the dates that had been agreed, and there was no question of the process having been accelerated.

During the meeting in Copenhagen, which Prof Andersen said he cannot recall, it is believed letters grading the applications were changed to numbers, at the request of Mr Brennan. On this issue, Prof Andersen said he was not “fond” of the change but it did not alter the result that emerged. There was no “row” with Mr Brennan about the matter, he said. It was more a discussion.

Asked about the suggestion implied in some questions from the tribunal that he might have imposed the outcome of the competition on the project group, Prof Andersen said: “That is a strange proposition . . . I reject it.” Asked about suggestions that the result was arrived at when work still needed to be done, he said there was always more work that could be done. The question was whether it would alter the outcome.

After he had finished questioning the witness, Mr O’Donnell asked that the chairman state publicly whether new provisional findings would be issued after Prof Andersen’s evidence.

Mr Justice Moriarty reserved his position on the matter.