No one in the Department of Communications has been able to assist the tribunal in identifying the author of a briefing note to the former minister, Mr Michael Lowry, explaining why Esat's bid was best, the tribunal heard.
The undated memo said detailed evaluations showed the bids by Esat and Persona were "head and shoulders" above the other four bids, and that the former was "clearly the best". It said Esat was superior to Persona in five out of six categories, including the most important ones regarding technical and financial capabilities. In the one category in which Persona fared better - that of tariffs - Esat came "a close second".
Comparing business plans, the memo said Esat was the best as it showed a "high degree of preparedness" while Persona was "generally less ready to go". It also said Esat had a more attractive network design and promised to achieve 80 per cent network coverage at its launch, twice that predicted by Persona.
The memo noted all applicants offered the maximum access fee of £15 million, so this factor became irrelevant to evaluations. It added that the Department-led GSM project team had been unanimous in its decision to recommend Esat.
Mr Coughlan said there was no documentation to support this claim, adding that no one in the Department could explain when the briefing note was prepared or who prepared it. Earlier, counsel drew attention to questions raised, under the heading "sensitivities, risks and credibility factors", in the final evaluation report prepared by consultants Anderson.
The report said the credibility of Esat's bid had been assessed as "extremely high" as it was the applicant with the highest degree of documentation behind its business plan. It noted Esat's "maybe weakest point" was not the application as such but one of the applicants behind it, namely Communicorp, which had negative equity.
Mr Coughlan noted the final report differed from an earlier draft version by including the word "maybe" at this point. He said the tribunal would investigate this and other differences to see whether they reflected discussions of the project team on October 9th, and particularly remarks by the Minister that the report should not argue with itself.
Mr Coughlan said the tribunal should inquire into the extent to which Mr Lowry contributed to this evaluation process.
