'No outside influence' on Esat success

THE MORIARTY TRIBUNAL: A member of the team that selected the winner of the 1995 second mobile phone licence competition said he believed the result was arrived at without outside influence.

Mr Sean MacMahon said he had "complete and utter faith" in the work carried out by his colleagues on the team and which led to the decision that the bid from Esat Digifone was the best bid. He agreed with Mr Eoin McGonigal SC, for Mr Denis O'Brien, that the work concerned was carried out independently and without outside pressure.

Mr McGonigal was referring to the work conducted by sub-committees of the team and which assessed and graded various aspects of the bids received. Mr MacMahon was not involved in the work of any of the sub-committees but took part in discussions of the sub-committees' results. He agreed with Mr McGonigal that the work of these sub-committees constituted the most decisive part of the evaluation process.

He agreed that the result arrived at was arrived at "honestly, sincerely and fairly". He said he had endorsed the result at the time and was happy it was the right result. "That is still my view," Mr MacMahon said. He said he was "reasonably certain" that the team had selected the best bid.

When Mr McGonigal asked Mr MacMahon if he was "completely happy to stand over" the final report, Mr MacMahon replied: "Not quite". He said he had expected there would be further work on the report before it was completed.

However, this did not turn out to be the case. He said he was happy that further analysis of the bids would not have led to a different result.

Mr MacMahon, who worked in the telecommunications and radio regulatory division of the Department of Communications at the time, told Mr Jerry Healy SC, for the tribunal, about contacts he had with Mr O'Brien in the period following the licence competition but prior to the actual issue of the licence.

Mr MacMahon had dealings with Esat Telecom, Mr O'Brien's land line business, which was in competition with Telecom Éireann. During a discussion on April 26th, 1996, Mr O'Brien gave information to Mr MacMahon concerning the intended shareholder configuration of Digifone.

The information differed from information which had been given to a colleague of Mr MacMahon's 10 days earlier by a solicitor acting for the consortium. During their meeting Mr O'Brien urged that the Department allow Esat Telecom have more capacity for its land line business.

He said that the US bank, Crédit Suisse First Boston, was saying it had to get more capacity before investors would put money into Mr O'Brien's combined business, comprising the land-line business and his share of Digifone.

Mr MacMahon wrote a note of the meeting in which he said of Mr O'Brien: "He is as evasive as ever." He also noted that the US bank, according to Mr O'Brien, was saying that Esat Telecom had to "get more capacity at Waterford and Cork!"

Mr MacMahon told Mr Healy that he knew Mr O'Brien from their contacts in relation to Esat Telecom.

He said it was "difficult to get a straight answer" from Mr O'Brien in relation to certain issues.

He said the entrepreneur tended to surround himself with advisers to whom he tended to refer queries. He would "pretend he did not know much about" the issues being inquired into.

He said that at times it appeared to him that Mr O'Brien was being deliberately evasive and it was for that reason that he'd made the note he had.