Eisland chief executive Mr Denis O'Brien urged Eircom management and staff to support his move to acquire the company yesterday ahead of a rival offer being prepared by a consortium chaired by Sir Anthony O'Reilly.

Mr O'Brien said eIsland's interest in Eircom was for the long term and Irish-led. He dismissed the rival O'Reilly consortium as "financially oriented" with just a three-year time horizon.

Allowing the national phone company to fall into the hands of a group of "trigger happy venture capital companies" was "South American", said Mr O'Brien.

"We have a 10 or 20-year horizon because I am only 43 and we like what we are doing and we want to go back into business," he said. "I think the management of Eircom will want to make sure that the new custodian of this business will look after the business and not break it up and sell it and put everyone out on the street."

EIsland has had a number of meetings with the Eircom Employee Share Ownership Programme (ESOP) Trustee which owns 15 per cent of the company on behalf of staff. The group has told Mr O'Brien that it would support his bid only if it was allowed increase its shareholding. Yesterday, Mr O'Brien said he was prepared to look at a new ESOP arrangement if he succeeded in gaining control of the company. Any bidder needs the support of shareholders owning at least 80 per cent of the company to succeed.

Mr O'Brien said he wanted to kill any suggestions that eIsland would make a hostile bid for Eircom and emphasised the constructive negotiations between the parties. "I think the other bidder this morning is trying to make out that our offer is hostile."

Mr O'Brien would not comment on whether he would raise his indicative offer to match the offer mooted by Sir Anthony's consortium.

The eIsland chairman also dismissed the suggestion that he would face higher borrowing costs for his leveraged bid than Sir Anthony's consortium which included Goldman Sachs, the leading merchant bank. He said that two members of Sir Anthony's consortium had offered to back his bid.

The third prospective bidder, Mr Dermot Desmond's International Investment & Underwriting, was not available for comment last night.