Loughrey stands over his decision on Esat Digifone

The former secretary general of the Department of Transport, Energy and Communications said he stood over his decision about the finances of Esat Digifone shortly before it was given the State's second mobile phone licence.

Mr John Loughrey said he had no doubt that Mr Denis O'Brien would be able to raise funds once the consortium was given the phone licence.

He said his concern about Mr Dermot Desmond was not the assets he held but whether he had the liquidity required for the "up front" phase of the project. He said that in the end he had to make a judgment call.

He told Mr John O'Donnell SC, for the Department, that he stood over the judgement he made.

The former secretary general said that ultimately the decision on the actual granting of the licence rested with him.

He had to satisfy himself before the licence was issued that the consortium would be in a position financially to deliver what was required. When it was put to him that he had to defend the interest of his then minister, Mr Michael Lowry, Mr Loughrey said "ministers come and go".

If there was an element of self interest in the scenario it was the interest of the Department and a personal self interest.

He was concerned with the robustness of the consortium that was going to be issued with the licence.

He agreed with Mr O'Donnell that an appendix of the report produced by the team that assessed the bids for the licence, noted that the equity required from Mr Denis O'Brien's company, Communicorp, for the Esat Digifone consortium, could not be met by Communicorp at that date.

The report noted that in a worst case scenario the requirement could be £39 million.

However, Mr Loughrey said he would be "astounded" if anyone had suggested that Mr O'Brien might not have been able to raise the money once the licence was awarded.

He pointed out that Telenor, the Norwegian company that formed part of Esat Digifone, was willing to "bridge" Mr O'Brien until he got the money he required. That was a vote of confidence from the Norwegians, that Mr O'Brien would raise the money in the US.

The question was not if but when Mr O'Brien would raise the money.

Mr Loughrey said he was "baffled and disappointed" that he had missed an article published in The Irish Times on February 28th, 1996. The article, by journalist John McManus, disclosed that Mr Dermot Desmond was an investor in Esat Digifone, something the Department did not become aware of until April 1996.

The licence was granted to the consortium in May 1996.

Mr Loughrey said the information in the article was so significant that when it was brought to his attention by the tribunal he had presumed at first that he must have been abroad when it was published.

However, he had checked and this was not the case. He had been back to the Department and records from the hard disc of a computer showed that he was very busy on the day the article appeared.

Nevertheless he was not hiding behind a busy diary. He was "horrified" that he had missed the article.

Mr Loughrey said he did not believe the outcome in relation to the granting of the licence to Esat Digifone would have been different if he had noticed the content of the article.

He believed his response to the article would have been the same as his response when he'd been told of Mr Desmond's involvement by civil servant Ms Regina Finn in April 1995.

The tribunal continues today.