The Minister for Public Enterprise has confirmed that her predecessors gave conflicting instructions to Telecom Eireann over the amount of access Esat should be given to the State company's telecommunications network. She was speaking on RTE's This Week yesterday.
Although Ms O'Rourke refrained from commenting on the substance of the case that Esat has brought against Telecom Eireann, her statement increases the likelihood that Telecom Eireann will seek to involve the Government and senior civil servants in the controversy at European Commission level.
Telecom Eireann is defending itself against charges of restrictive practices being investigated by the European Commission's competitions division on the basis that it received conflicting directions from the Government.
As reported in The Irish Times last week, there were a series of different instructions sent by Mr Michael Lowry and Mr Alan Dukes, the two Fine Gael predecessors to Ms O'Rourke, to Telecom Eireann. These arose out of complaints by Esat to the European Commission in 1994 that it was being denied access to the Telecom lines it needed in order to provide a competitive service.
In the first instruction to Telecom Eireann, in March 1996, Mr Lowry is understood to have told the State company not to provide access by Direct Dial-In (DDI) lines to the Telecom network. Three months later, after Esat made representations to Mr Lowry and made it clear to him that it would be taking further action at EU level, he amended the original direction to Telecom.
He said that Esat should be allowed access to the Telecom network for DDI lines, but only on the basis of prior authorisation and approval by his department. When Mr Dukes became minister he relaxed the restrictions further.
Esat could win damages of between £10 million and £15 million if it is successful.