O'Brien says he knew of no other contacts with department

Moriarty tribunal: The entrepreneur Mr Denis O'Brien said he knew of no contacts or communications between Esat Digifone and the Department of Transport, Energy and Communications during the competition for the State's second mobile phone licence, other than those the tribunal already knew about.

Mr O'Brien was asked by Mr John Coughlan SC, for the tribunal, about a solicitor's note from October 10th, 1995. The note recorded a meeting in Matheson Ormsby Prentice between Mr Per Simonsen, of Telenor, a partner in the Digifone consortium, and Mr Arthur Moran, solicitor.

One part read: "Decision, end November 1995, in fact decision 2/3 weeks." The deadline for the announcement as to who had won the mobile phone licence was the end of November, though the decision that Digifone had won was in fact announced on October 25th.

Mr Coughlan said the note was "fairly spot-on" and that the decision was announced 2½ weeks after the meeting.

Mr O'Brien said he had "no idea where they got that from". He said there were no communications with the assessors of the bids for the licence, or with the department, or with the minister, Mr Michael Lowry. He said Mr Coughlan would have to address his questions to the people who were at the meeting.

Mr Coughlan said the reference "indicates that there was some contact, some information being obtained about what was going on in the department".

Mr O'Brien said he was not aware of any contact. He said that at the time everyone was speculating about what was going on in the department.

Mr O'Brien was asked about a letter sent to the department on September 29th, 1995, informing the department that Mr Dermot Desmond's IIU Ltd, had become involved in the Digifone consortium. The letter was returned, as the date for the submission of material linked to bids for the licence had passed.

Mr Coughlan said letters written by Telenor after the IIU letter had been returned indicated that Telenor did not know the IIU letter had been returned. Mr O'Brien said the return of the letter was an important event and he was sure he would have told the relevant people.

Mr Coughlan said there was a tremendous amount of activity prior to the submission of the letter but "tremendous calm" after the letter had been returned.

Mr O'Brien said that by then everyone was waiting for the result of the competition. "It was like waiting around for your Leaving Cert."

Mr Coughlan asked why the department was not told of the involvement of IIU Ltd on the day the result of the competition was announced, October 25th, 1995. Mr O'Brien said it was "hats off time" on October 25th, and another celebration with Telenor was held on October 26th. It was November 9th before they had their first meeting with the department. Asked why Mr Desmond's involvement was not revealed at that stage, Mr O'Brien said that the September 29th letter had been sent to the department and the opportunity was there for the department to raise the issue if it wished to.

Mr Amund Bugge, a lawyer working for Telenor, wrote a note concerning Esat Digifone on October 27th, 1995. In the note he said that Telenor knew very little about IIU. "Its credibility rests completely on its owner, Dermot Desmond. He is a financier and has made his fortune on stock broking and has, broadly speaking, been behaving well. He is said to have acted illoyally vis-à-vis the Irish authorities once before. This supposedly happened relatively long ago so the authorities' confidence in him is now presumed to be relatively good."

Mr O'Brien, asked about evidence given to the tribunal by estate agent Mr Mark FitzGerald, son for the former Taoiseach. Mr O'Brien said Mr FitzGerald had been "lying" when he'd said that he had been asked by Mr O'Brien in October 1995 if he knew how the competition was progressing. He said he felt "completely let down" by Mr FitzGerald.

The tribunal adjourned until next week when it will hear evidence from a new witness.