Official 'troubled' by Lowry pressure on bids process

MORIARTY TRIBUNAL: A member of the team that selected the 1995 mobile phone licence competition winner thought the then minister, Mr Michael Lowry, might have applied pressure to wrap up the process to bring about a particular result.

Mr Sean MacMahon said he was "troubled" at the time by the pressure that was coming down from Mr Lowry to finish the process. He said he would have preferred if no such pressure had been created. However, he said he decided to dismiss the idea that Mr Lowry was trying to bring about a particular result and he had no evidence that the pressure had distorted the result. Mr MacMahon was giving evidence about events on October 23rd, 1995, two days before Mr Lowry announced that Esat Digifone had won the competition. He said he "may" have mentioned his concern to the then secretary general of the Dept of Transport, Energy and Communications, Mr John Loughrey, during a meeting on October 23rd at which he pressed for more time for the assessment team to complete its work.

On the 23rd the assessment team was considering a draft report on the competition which, it had decided, had been won by Esat Digifone. Mr MacMahon said he was aware that the minister wanted to bring the process to an end and announce the winner. He agreed with Mr Jerry Healy SC, for the tribunal, that in certain circumstances pressure for a result can be the same as pressure for a particular result.

Mr MacMahon told the chairman, Mr Justice Moriarty, that it crossed his mind that the minister might want a particular result. He said it was something that was "well within the realms of possibility" and something that he felt it was a civil servant's duty to note. However, he said, having noted the possibility he decided it was not a very real possibility and moved on.

He said he decided that "quite the contrary was the case". He knew the other members of the assessment team and was quite satisfied of their bona fides and believed there was no question that they would have given in to that sort of pressure, if it existed. He said nothing he had heard since had caused him to change that view.

Mr Healy said that if certain evidence came to be accepted, then the minister was at the time in discussions with members of the Esat Digifone consortium, though this was not known to the civil servants. Mr MacMahon said he would have been concerned if he had known there had been anything like that going on.

Mr MacMahon said it was not unusual for a minister "to want to speed things up" but the pressure troubled him. It was not sufficient to make alarm bells ring, he said, and he did not conclude and has seen no evidence to conclude that the pressure was such that it distorted the result of the competition.

He agreed with Mr Healy that what in fact had been a very close result was later presented in public as a very clear result.

The tribunal heard that the team's meeting on October 23rd was interrupted while Mr MacMahon; the team's chairman, Mr Martin Brennan; and team member Mr John McQuaid went to see Mr Loughrey. Mr MacMahon argued that the team needed more time to work on the report. He said that some members of the team were arguing that the process should be completed so the result could be announced.

He said he did not like the idea of being put under time pressure, but had no reason to believe that there was anything untoward involved.

He said pressure from the minister was a fact of life in the civil service.

He agreed with Mr Healy that the team was involved in an adjudicatory function rather than an administrative one and that the team's work should have been immune from the minister.

Mr MacMahon said he argued as hard as he could for more time during the meeting with Mr Loughrey. He said he believed the report did not support the conclusion the team had arrived at. He said that at the time he was happy with the result. When the meeting with Mr Loughrey ended he believed the team was to be given enough time. He said the team worked until late that evening and he was one of the last to leave. He thought he would see another draft report before the team's work ended but he never did. He said he did not believe that further analysis would have changed the result. Mr MacMahon continues his evidence today.