THE MORIARTY tribunal is to reopen its marathon inquiry into the awarding of a mobile phone licence to Esat Digifone in 1996, The Irish Timeshas learned.
The former secretary general of the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment, John Loughrey, is to be recalled to give further evidence as are civil servants Martin Brennan and Fintan Towey. Mr Brennan gave evidence over a number of weeks as far back as 2002.
It is possible the senior counsel who acts for the department at the tribunal, Richard Nesbitt, may also be called to give evidence as well as former minister Michael Lowry.
The hearings are expected to begin late next month and are likely to take a week or more. However, given their nature, it is possible they could last for a substantially longer period.
The development is likely to be viewed with dismay by the Government as it was thought the inquiry, which has already built up legal costs of tens of millions of euro, had ended two years ago.
In March 2007 Mr Justice Moriarty said he intended to complete his report on the inquiry by the end of that year, subject to the requirements of fairness.
Preliminary findings arising from the inquiry and from inquiries into the personal finances of Mr Lowry, were sent by the tribunal to affected parties, including the department, late last year. Last month Minister for Communications Eamon Ryan lifted legal privilege that had up to then prevented the tribunal from introducing in evidence a legal opinion received by the department in 1996, prior to the award of the phone licence to Esat Digifone.
The founder of Esat, businessman Denis O’Brien, has since claimed the opinion, written by Mr Nesbitt at the request of the Attorney General’s office, “rubbishes” the claim that there was political interference in the awarding of the licence and shows as “fundamentally flawed” provisional findings of the tribunal.
The chairman’s finding in relation to the decision to issue the licence to Esat Digifone is likely to be one of the major findings in his long-awaited report.
Mr Justice Moriarty has now decided that, following submissions from Mr O’Brien and others, the three witnesses should be recalled to give evidence in relation to the opinion. The opinion deals with whether the licence should be issued to Esat, which had won the competition to negotiate for the licence some months earlier.
Tribunal senior counsel John Coughlan and Jerry Healy, who have been working for the tribunal since its inception in 1997 to investigate payments to Mr Lowry and the late Charles Haughey, have been earning €2,500 per day each since they received a pay rise six years ago.