DENIS O'BRIENhas sought a right of reply to an article by our Public Affairs Correspondent Colm Keena which dealt with views expressed by Mr O'Brien in interviews with four newspapers last weekend
ON OCTOBER 25th, 1995, it was announced that Esat Digifone had won the second mobile phone licence competition. We had a night of great celebrations and quickly knuckled down to the task of building and launching a mobile business that would go on to capture a 42 per cent market share. We became the most successful ever second entrant into a European mobile market. Some people can’t, or won’t, accept that we deserved to win.
The Moriarty tribunal, by its own admission, deals in reasoned and informed “opinions” rather than findings of criminal or civil liability. The tribunal’s report will constitute Mr Justice Michael Moriarty’s “reasonably informed expression of opinion” about the licence process.
His conclusions are not facts. They are not based on evidence treated in the same way as it would be in a court.
Let me deal with the facts.
The tribunal has been inquiring into the licence since 2001. It continues to this day. This inquiry could end up costing the State about €200 million. The bills continue to pile up at an extraordinary rate. The tribunal has heard evidence from 70 witnesses and has sat in public for 150 days – averaging out at about 21 sitting days per year. Sworn evidence has been given by 18 senior civil servants, one European Union official, one former taoiseach, five former government ministers and senior counsel to the Department of Communications Richard Nesbitt. The most important fact of all: not a single person has actually given evidence that Michael Lowry interfered in any way in the licence process or that there was any impropriety or wrongdoing. Every single civil servant who was involved in conducting the licence process maintained in evidence that their work had not been interfered with and that they had not been overborne in any way.
The competition process was carried out by a specialist project team drawn from the Departments of Finance and Transport, Energy and Communications. Michael Lowry was not involved. This team of civil servants was assisted in its work by the highly respected Danish telecommunications consultant Michael Andersen of Andersen Management International (AMI). Michael Andersen voluntarily assisted the tribunal with its private inquires throughout 2002 and early 2003. He met the tribunal, provided copious documentation and generally gave the tribunal all the assistance that it was seeking; all on a voluntary basis.
In March 2003, the tribunal wrote to Mr Andersen to inform him that the tribunal had itself received an “expert report” that showed that the licence process he had worked on was “fundamentally flawed”. Following receipt of the tribunal’s letter, Michael Andersen declined to further assist the tribunal.
The “expert report” the tribunal relied upon was prepared by Dr Peter Bacon, having been commissioned by the tribunal. Dr Bacon has, by his own admission, no experience whatsoever in mobile phone tender/competition processes. Before his work in Ireland, Michael Andersen had been involved in over 120 such processes in over 50 countries worldwide.
Incidentally, Michael Andersen had this to say about Esat Digifone’s bid when dealing with the tribunal: “. . .The quality and consistency of Esat Digifone’s application with regard to the extent and content of the information provided is among the absolute best that AMI have seen during the many evaluations that AMI at that time and since then has participated in . . .” The fact that Dr Bacon had produced a report for the tribunal was not disclosed to interested parties over a period of years while evidence on the licence competition was being heard by the tribunal.
When will the tribunal admit that there is no James Gogarty at the Moriarty tribunal; no Frank Dunlop? There is no smoking gun – what we have are Mr Justice Moriarty’s “opinions” based on the evidence heard.
The Irish Times is correct in saying that the tribunal’s findings, if they turn out to be as I have predicted, will present “ . . . a pretty sorry picture indeed of ethical standards in the highest echelons of the Irish State. The reputations of Irish politics, the Civil Service, and once again the Irish business class all seem set for a serious hit . . .” I would also agree that “ . . . this negative image of Ireland will be carried in the media around the globe, delivering another mauling to Ireland’s already rather battered name . . .”.
Ireland has a Civil Service that it can truly be proud of. I have dealt with many civil servants throughout my career and have never encountered anything less than the very highest standards of integrity, probity and decency. This tribunal’s continued assault on the integrity of the public service was highlighted as recently as last week when tribunal counsel accused senior counsel for the State that his evidence “lacked credibility”.
Esat Digifone won the mobile phone licence for the simple reason that it put in the best bid. Every single benchmark, commitment or projection made in the bid was exceeded – in many cases dramatically. Esat brought aggressive competition into the Irish telecommunications market from which the Irish consumer benefited hugely.
Esat Telecom Group Plc invested €1.5 billion in alternative telecoms infrastructure in Ireland. We created 3,000 jobs directly with no Government grants. Over €350 million was distributed to the staff when their share options were cashed in as the company was ultimately sold to BT. Esat Digifone was a real Irish success story.
I remain hugely proud of everything that the Esat team achieved through sheer guts, determination and effort. Those people, the civil servants, and the State are entitled to their good name unless and until conclusive evidence of wrongdoing is produced against them.
There are those who would suggest that I am “getting my retaliation in first” by attacking the tribunal’s provisional findings or (as per The Irish Times’s own front page) that I am “. . . hoping to damage the reputation of the tribunal . . . in an effort to lessen the impact of its final report . . .”. This is not the case. I simply cannot, and will not, accept the provisional findings.
Recent evidence given by the civil servants, by Richard Nesbitt SC and by others has not revealed any wrongdoing or impropriety.
I expect that evidence and material to be provided to the tribunal will disprove many of the provisional findings. This fight has a long way to go.
Denis O’Brien is chairman and founder of the Digicel Group