Memo on licence bid was 'distortion' of the findings

The civil servant who chaired the team which selected the winner of the 1995 mobile phone licence competition has said he could not support the hypothesis that the competition was "closed down" when Esat Digifone was ahead, so that no further examination of the consortium's finances could take place.

Mr Martin Brennan said if it was being suggested that Mr Michael Lowry shut down the process because he knew of the difficulties with Esat Digifone's stated finances, then "I am not in a position to assist you because I don't know".

When Mr Jerry Healy SC, for the tribunal, said it was "very fortunate" for Esat Digifone that there was no further scrutiny of the consortium's finances, Mr Brennan said: "I think we are at the outer edges of hypothesis." The tribunal heard the winner of the competition was announced before a copy of the final report on the competition was received by the then minister, Mr Lowry.

A briefing note for the minister prepared before he sought approval for the announcement of the winner from his cabinet colleagues was "quite a distortion" of the findings of the competition assessment team and over emphasised the extent to which the bid from Esat Digifone had been found to be better than the bid from the second-ranked applicant, Persona.

Mr Brennan said he was not the source of the pressure to finish the process and announce the winner.

The tribunal heard that a meeting of the team on October 23rd, 1995 was told that the minister "wants a result today".

However, it was clear that members of the team were still "at odds" over a number of issues, according to a note of the meeting.

One member, Mr Sean McMahon, was of the view that the conclusion that Esat Digifone had won could not be justified by the draft report then in existence and that the competition was "too close".

It was agreed, following a meeting with the secretary of the department, Mr John Loughrey, that a further week would be granted before the report was signed off.

However, in the evening of October 23rd, it was decided by the team that another week might not sort out the differences. It was decided to proceed as "it became possible to finish the report".

A document shown to the tribunal recorded Digifone as having scored 432 points for its bid, while Persona scored 410. The maximum number of points was 500.

Mr Healy said he could not understand why the announcement was not withheld until a copy of the final report was received. Mr Brennan said it would not be unusual for a government minister to make an announcement while not in possession of a final report.

He said he did not have the report by 4 p.m., when the minister was due to meet Mr John Bruton, Mr Dick Spring and Mr Proinsias De Rossa. "Certainly by 4 o'clock I was in a position to say everything was agreed, but it had to be presented and printed."

A journal entry by Mr Bruton recorded Mr Lowry coming to see him and the other two party leaders in the then rainbow coalition. Mr Bruton, in a statement of intended evidence, said he recalled Mr Lowry saying that a clear winner had emerged and discussing the issue of when the announcement should be made.

As it was decided that the cabinet was not going to "second guess" the assessment team's decision, it was decided there was no reason to delay the announcement.

Mr Bruton's journal entry recorded Mr Lowry telling him that in Italy the government had not accepted the winner of the licence competition and this had led to a challenge by the European Commission. Mr Brennan said he did not believe that this statement was correct and said he had not told Mr Lowry that it was so.

A briefing note prepared for Mr Lowry, seemingly in preparation for his meeting with the party leaders, said a detailed examination had shown that the Digifone application was "clearly the best".

The memo said that it had been found that disregarding the criteria where the two top bids scored similar points, the Digifone bid had been superior to the Persona bid in five cases and Persona better than Digifone in one case.

However, the report in fact only found Digifone better than Persona in two cases and Persona better than Digifone in one. Mr Healy said the memo was "quite a distortion of the evaluation report result". Mr Brennan is to resume giving evidence today.