Esat win a 'surprise' for leaders of FG, Labour, DL

The leaders of the three parties in the Rainbow Coalition expressed surprise when told that Esat Digifone had won the 1995 mobile phone licence competition, the tribunal was told by the former minister for finance, Mr Ruairí Quinn.

Mr Quinn said the surprise was due to the fact that Esat Digifone was perceived as an underdog and not because any other bidder was expected to win.

Mr Quinn said he could clearly recall the Cabinet sub-committee meeting in the Taoiseach's office on Wednesday, October 25th, 1995. He said he was there along with Mr Michael Lowry, Mr Dick Spring, Mr Proinsias de Rossa and Mr John Bruton.

He said that at the end of a discussion on Aer Lingus, the then minister for transport, energy and communications, Mr Lowry, asked permission to raise the subject of the licence competition.

A winner had emerged and he was anxious to avoid any leak in relation to the matter. He sought permission to announce the outcome that afternoon. The matter could then be noted by the Cabinet on the following day.

As it had already been decided that the government would agree with the decision arrived at by the group assessing the bids, the sub-committee agreed with Mr Lowry's proposal.

Mr Quinn said Mr Lowry read out the marks scored by each of the six bidding consortiums. He told Mr John Coughlan SC, for the tribunal, that there was no mention by Mr Lowry of any qualification in relation to the winner. "There was surprise at the outcome and some discussion as to whether we could go with this." There was surprise expressed because of the feeling that Esat Digifone, on the face of it, had less experience or muscle than consortiums such as Persona, which included Motorola, he said.

A document displayed at the tribunal showed Esat Digifone scored 432 marks. The other scores were: Persona (410); Irish Mobicall (362); Irish Cellular Telephone (353); Eurofone (347); and Cellstar (268).