State lost Motorola investment, Bruton was told in letter

MORIARTY TRIBUNAL: Ireland went from the top to the bottom of the list of countries earmarked for investment by Motorola following the State's second mobile-phone licence competition, a businessman informed the taoiseach at the time, Mr John Bruton, in a letter.

Mr Michael McGinley, an executive with the Sigma group and a former executive with Motorola, told the Moriarty tribunal yesterday he wrote to Mr Bruton in February 1996.

He said he was moved to write the letter after noting from an article in The Irish Times that day that Mr Dermot Desmond was a shareholder in the winning consortium, Esat Digifone. Both Sigma and Motorola had been part of another bidder, Persona.

Mr McGinley wrote that the tendering document for the competition required full information on ownership from the bidders.

"So far 20 per cent of the winning consortium is not disclosed. I now read in the newspaper today of Dermot Desmond involvement," he wrote.

He also said Esat Telecom had been breaking the rules of its telephone licence for two years, but nothing had been done by the minister for transport, energy and communications, Mr Michael Lowry.

"You must understand that Motorola had a major expansion for Ireland . . . Unfortunately from being top of the list for Motorola expansion, Ireland is now relegated to the bottom."

He said Mr Lowry and the committee that selected the winning bid "had an opportunity to support Motorola, but they failed to do so."

Mr McGinley said he and the Persona chairman, Mr Tony Boyle, had set up Sigma, which by 1996 was employing 200 people in Finglas, Dublin. They had also been instrumental in getting Motorola to set up in Ireland, where it employed 1,500 in Swords, Co Dublin.

He said they learned that Esat Digifone had won the licence competition from the radio, and it was two months before they received their "Dear John" letter. "There's a thing called courtesy," he said.

Mr McGinley told Mr Richard Nesbitt SC, for the Department, that he had no evidence that any member of the assessment committee acted other than in an appropriate way. Persona has lodged a claim against the State in relation to the competition.

Mr Eoin McGonigal SC, for Mr O'Brien, said it was his understanding that Persona had lodged a plenary summons in June 2001 and had taken no further step. Mr McGinley said he did not know.

Mr McGonigal suggested the summons was lodged so as to avoid the statute of limitations on the issue. Mr McGinley confirmed that the legal advice on which Persona was acting came from solicitor Mr Gerald Moloney.

A memo of a May 1996 meeting between representatives of Persona and officials from the Department was shown to the tribunal. The meeting was held so Persona could ask questions about the 1995 competition. A civil servant, Mr Fintan Towey, later noted that it was "clear that the objective of the consortium was to undermine the process rather than to get general information regarding why their application was not successful."