Without a hint of understatement, Mr Sean Doherty TD yesterday noted the inquiry into cost overruns on Iarnrod Eireann's new signalling project was "not an inquisition".
But the presence of top flight legal figures and public relations consultants at a preliminary hearing of the inquiry would lead observers to assume otherwise. Major issues are at stake for the 100 or so witnesses expected to be called by the inquiry.
Formal hearings are expected to begin in September, though Mr Doherty's 69-page preliminary statement gave a clear indication of the direction the inquiry will take.
At its heart are a set of interlocking relationships linking Iarnrod Eireann with Esat, the telecoms group then controlled by Mr Denis O'Brien, and a Dublin telecoms contractor, Modern Networks Ltd (MNL).
Mr Doherty implied these relationships enabled Esat, a privately owned company, to construct valuable infrastructure on State property. Iarnrod Eireann's obligations under its contracts with Esat ultimately disadvantaged its own plans for the railway.
The award of the State's second mobile phone licence in 1996 to Esat Digifone, a part-owned subsidiary of Mr O'Brien's company, is currently the subject of separate investigations at the Moriarty Tribunal.
While that licence was crucial to Esat's development and flotation on the Nasdaq in 1997, Mr Doherty noted yesterday that its network on the railway was "a very considerable asset with a considerable saleable value".
"With a very limited number of networks this will, of course, permit the suppliers to control entry into the market, and accordingly prices," he said.
Citing the sale of Esat to BT in January 2000, Mr Doherty added that a "significant proportion" of its non-mobile business, valued at $1.22 billion (#1.42 billion), might be attributed to the network.
"The value of the network and, accordingly, the licence [to use it] granted by CIE, is difficult to estimate with any certainty but it might reasonably be said that without such a network the value of Esat might have been materially diminished."
Mr Doherty noted that work on that telecoms network began "long before" CIE reached final agreements with Esat and before a Statutory Instrument enabling the transport group to operate in the telecoms market came into force.
The subcommittee was established to find out why the cost of the signalling project is likely to rise to £50 million (#63.5 million) from £14 million.
Mr Doherty implied that work on a parallel network for Esat was given priority by Iarnrod Eireann. The completed Esat network, which is 2,000 km long, was built by Iarnrod Eireann's subcontractor, MNL.
The signalling system planned by the rail company was 900 km. This happened despite a European Commission stipulation that £13 million in funding under the European cohesion fund was dependent on the project's completion by the end of 1999.
That did not happen. CIE must bear the cost of the project and Mr Doherty revealed that the European Commission has initiated its own inquiry into the affair.
MNL - with an Italian firm Sasib - successfully tendered CIE for the contract. The award of the contract was made despite concerns within CIE about Sasib's suitability for the job. The company was subsequently taken over by the French group, Alstom.
The Esat and the Iarnrod projects were separately conceived, with different objectives, but Mr Doherty's statement said the two projects were linked from the outset. It was MNL that proposed the link with Esat, a day before it submitted its Mini-CTC tender.
Mr Doherty also noted that Esat's negotiation with CIE was led by its acting chief executive, Mr Leslie Buckley, a man who a year earlier worked as an external consultant to the group.
The subcommittee will also inquire why four senior figures left Iarnrod Eireann to join MNL after it secured the MiniCTC contract, as CIE's signalling project was known.
September promises to be a busy month for the former Minister for Justice and his subcommittee colleagues: Mr Pat Rabbitte TD; Mr Jim Higgins TD; Mr Martin Brady TD; Mr Noel O'Flynn TD; and Mr Austin Currie TD.
