MILLIONAIRE BUSINESSMAN Denis O’Brien has stepped up his campaign against the Moriarty tribunal with further strongly-worded attacks on the inquiry.
In a round of Sunday newspaper interviews, Mr O’Brien also revealed the extent to which the tribunal has made adverse findings against him in relation to the awarding of the State’s mobile phone licence to his Esat consortium in 1996.
According to Mr O’Brien, the tribunal has made 60 “negative findings” against him, out of 79 provisional findings it sent to him last November. He says the provisional findings accuse him of lying in his bid, giving false evidence and misleading people.
He also says there are 29 findings outlining how the mobile phone licence was improperly awarded to his Esat consortium.
Mr O’Brien has vowed to fight the tribunal “street by street” to clear his name and save the State money. “We’ve had to take the fight to the tribunal otherwise the Government will be faced with a massive claim for damages . The fundamental thing is whether the licence was legally issued. Provisional findings say it was illegal,” he told the Sunday Times.
The 51-year-old businessman plans to continue his campaign by using freedom of information legislation to obtain information which he believes will show the tribunal is squandering public resources , The Irish Timesunderstands.
An adverse finding by the tribunal about the manner in which the licence was awarded would damage Ireland internationally, he said yesterday. “The reputation of Ireland will be severely damaged . . . this is the first time in the history of the State that a group of civil servants have been accused of corruption.”
The tribunal was “out of control”, he claimed, and was squandering resources. Claiming the final bill for the inquiry could be €200 million, he alleged two junior counsel were doing “a projectionist’s job” and people were putting in expenses “left, right and centre”.
Any time he raised issues at the tribunal he was shouted down, he said. “There (is) no sense of proper justice here and if anything this is rough justice akin to what happened in the UK in the seventies and eighties. This is a very dark period of justice,” he told the Sunday Independent.
"It's unheard of. I mean, it's Burma," he told the Sunday Tribune.
There was no comparison between the Moriarty tribunal and other inquiries, he said. The Morris tribunal was well-run and had delivered “huge results” on Garda corruption. The Mahon tribunal’s inquiries into planning corruption produced “solid results”.
He acknowledged that Mr Justice Michael Moriarty had delivered results on Charles Haughey but in investigating the award of the mobile phone licence, it was examining a single decision made by a minister, Michael Lowry.
Mr O'Brien criticised a number of journalists who had written stories about the Moriarty tribunal and claimed The Irish Times"have made a thing that they're going to be the tribunal newspaper".
He claimed “crazy theories” written by journalists such as Matt Cooper and Sam Smyth were “basically off-the-wall” and had been proven to be “all wrong”.
He said Irish Timesjournalist Colm Keena "listens to stuff that no-one else listens because he misses everything".
“When I read the transcript the night before, I say, ‘Jesus, that’s fantastic stuff; we’re going to get a headline’ and next thing you read the thing from Colm – you may as well be reading the Beano.”
He said he had co-operated fully with the tribunal, had not claimed privilege on any document and had not redacted any document. “I have given everything, even copies of trust documents okay, so, like, they cannot say that I have not co-operated.” His own legal costs are €12 million so far, he said.
Mr O’Brien flew to the US yesterday and was unavailable for further comment.
