The team that selected the winner of the 1995 mobile-phone licence competition did not follow the evaluation model it set out for itself. Also it appeared that the minister at the time, Mr Michael Lowry, "intervened in what was supposed to be a sealed process", counsel for the Moriarty tribunal said yesterday, writes Colm Keena
Mr Jerry Healy SC said that a major element of the evaluation model was dropped. This element had put the eventual winner, Esat Digifone, in third place and the eventual second-ranked bid, Persona, in first place.
He spent the day reading a statement in which he reviewed some of the evidence heard concerning the licence competition. He said he had been working on the statement up to late on Monday night.
It is not clear why the statement was read out yesterday. The witness due to give evidence, civil servant Mr Sean McMahon, spent the day at the back of the tribunal room listening to Mr Healy.
Mr Healy set out what he said were areas of the licence competition that the tribunal would now be focusing on. After listing these areas, he said: "All of this should be viewed in circumstances where, from the information available, it would appear that the minister intervened in what was supposed to be a sealed process".
The tribunal has already heard that, in the final weeks of the process, Mr Lowry asked that the selection process be accelerated. At the time he was aware that Esat Digifone was the top ranked of the six bids received.
Mr Healy said the original intention of the assessment team was to conduct an evaluation process that involved two sorts of evaluations, quantitative and qualitative.
These two types of evaluation were to be compared, leading to a final result. The evaluation model was formally adopted by the evaluation team prior to the closing date for bids for the licence.
"The method proposed and formally adopted does not seem to have been used," Mr Healy said.
He said the team had not relied on the quantitative evaluations proposed and instead had selected the winner on the basis of the qualitative evaluations alone.
A report presented to the team in early October "purported" to be a draft final report rather than a draft report of the qualitative assessment.
The tribunal is in the second year of its inquiry into the phone licence competition. On Monday the Law Reform Commission published a consultation paper on changes in the way tribunals function.
o Carol Coulter, Legal Affairs Correspondent, writes: A High Court judge has expressed his concern that evidence emerging at the various tribunals currently sitting may be damaging Ireland's reputation abroad.
Mr Justice Smith, chairman of the Standards in Public Office Commission, says in an article in Public Affairs Ireland magazine that the damage is reflected in the fact that Ireland now ranks 23rd on the Corruption Perception Index, behind Chile and Hong Kong. "Evidence from the tribunals can be damaging when it comes to sustaining Ireland's reputation as a country where it is possible to conduct business in an environment which is not tainted by corruption," he writes.