No deliberate failure to tell of meetings, tribunal told

The Department of Marine, Communications and Natural Resources did not deliberately fail to inform the tribunal of two meetings with Esat Digifone representatives in May 1996, the tribunal was told.

Mr Martin Brennan, an assistant secretary in the department and formerly a principal officer with the department of transport, energy and communications, said he could not explain why there were no notes on the department's files of the two 1996 meetings. "I can't account for it," he said.

Mr Brennan said that during the past 20 years the practice whereby civil servants kept records of every meeting they attended had begun to disappear.

Mr Jerry Healy SC, for the tribunal, said it had only learned of the meetings from documents received from Digifone representatives. Mr Brennan said that if Mr Healy was suggesting that the failure to tell the tribunal about the meetings was deliberate, "the answer is a resounding no".

Mr Owen O'Connell, a senior solicitor for William Fry, which was acting for Esat Digifone, made notes of the meetings on May 3rd and May 13th, 1996.

The licence was awarded to Esat Digifone on May 16th, 1996.

At the meeting, attended by Mr Brennan, other officials and Digifone representatives, the involvement of Mr Dermot Desmond's IIU Ltd in the Digifone consortium was discussed. At the second meeting, they discussed the press conference which would be held on the day of the licence award, and answers to likely questions.

Drafts of likely questions and possible answers were subsequently faxed. However, no records of these have been found on the department's files.

Mr Brennan said that after the licence competition was won by Esat Digifone in October 1995, he received six bottles of Midleton Very Rare whiskey, with a value of £75 each. The bottles were for him and other members of the competition assessment team but were sent back by Mr Brennan to Mr Denis O'Brien.

The tribunal heard that a note by civil servant Mr Fintan Towey recorded that the then minister, Mr Michael Lowry, wanted the shareholding configuration of Esat Digifone to be 40 per cent Esat Telecom, 40 per cent Communicorp and 20 per cent IIU Ltd, before the licence was issued. At the time IIU had 25 per cent and the other two shareholders 37.5 per cent each.