Witness says he does not recall meeting

Mr Denis O'Brien said he had no memory of a meeting with a Danish executive during which he said he had been told by Mr Michael Lowry that he should bring Mr Dermot Desmond's IIU Ltd into the Esat Digifone consortium.

Mr John Coughlan SC, for the tribunal, said Mr Per Simmonsen, of Norwegian firm Telenor, told the tribunal that at some time in the last two weeks of September 1995, Mr O'Brien had told him that he, Mr O'Brien, had happened to meet Mr Lowry in a public place and that Mr Lowry had suggested IIU Ltd should join the consortium.

Mr O'Brien said he had no memory of any such meeting and that nothing in the documents that had been reviewed indicated an opportunity for such a meeting "during which such a comment could have been made". He said his only memory of meeting Mr Lowry during this period was the day of the All Ireland Final, on September 17th, 1995. He had gone to the match as a guest of Mr Padraig Ó hUiginn and was seated a number of rows behind Mr Lowry.

Mr Lowry and Mr O'Brien met at half-time and agreed they might meet for a drink afterwards. They did meet for 15 to 30 minutes in Hartigan's pub on Leeson Street, Dublin, where they discussed the match and issues to do with Esat Telecom's fixed-line business.

"This meeting with Mr Lowry was entered by me into my diary, along with several other entries for that week, subsequent to them taking place. There was no arrangement to meet Mr Lowry prior to seeing him at the All Ireland Football Final."

Mr Coughlan said Drury Communications had contacted the tribunal to take "fundamental issue" with an element of Mr O'Brien's statement about which Drury's had been notified earlier yesterday. Mr O'Brien had said that Drury's had "jumped ship as public affairs advisers" to Digifone when it was preparing its bid for the mobile phone licence and had "started to work for Motorola, presumably because they thought Motorola had a better chance of winning the licence".

"We had a concern that Drury Communications would, unethically, use information through their involvement with us to assist Motorola in the preparation of their bid," Mr O'Brien said.

Mr Coughlan said Drury Communications had said Mr O'Brien's statement was factually wrong. The firm had resigned from Digifone in 1994 and had subsequently begun working for Motorola's manufacturing plant.

It had not worked on the bid with which Motorola was connected and the "allegation" made by Mr O'Brien was "mischievous and without foundation".