There was no conspiracy to mislead the Dáil in relation to the ownership of Esat Digifone in April 1996, a senior civil servant told the Moriarty Tribunal.
Mr Martin Brennan, resuming his evidence, said he had a significant role in drafting a speech delivered by the then Minister for Transport, Energy and Communications, Mr Lowry, just weeks before the licence was awarded.
The speech did not disclose the fact that a solicitor for Esat Digifone had informed the Department just two weeks earlier that Mr Dermot Desmond's IIU Ltd would be replacing the financial institutions named in the original bid for the State's second mobile phone licence. The bid had envisaged the institutions taking up 20 per cent of the consortium.
Mr Brennan, who chaired the committee that selected the winning bid, said the Department was, at the time of Mr Lowry's speech, considering the new information it had received in relation to IIU's involvement in Digifone and was seeking legal advice on the matter. He was not sure the Minister was aware of the IIU development at the time he made the speech.
In his speech, Mr Lowry told the Dáil he could not name the investors who were to become involved in the Digifone consortium because of a confidentiality agreement. Mr Brennan agreed with Mr Jerry Healy SC, for the tribunal, that there was no confidentiality agreement covering IIU's involvement.
Mr Healy said the information conveyed to the Department by solicitor Mr Owen O'Connell was not for the Department to consider but was a statement of fact. Mr Brennan agreed. When Mr Healy said the purpose of Mr Lowry's speech to the Dáil was to "scotch" the innuendo and controversy that was then in existence in relation to the licence competition, Mr Brennan said he presumed "we were not ready to scotch that part of it", meaning the ownership issue.
Mr Brennan said he thought it was a little unfair to the people who were involved in drafting the speech to suggest that there was an attempt to "massage the facts", because there had been no such attempt.
Asked was the Department driven by a desire to make a statement that would justify its reticence in relation to the ownership issue, Mr Brennan said "we were trying to give the best statement we could in the circumstances".
"I don't recall being of a mindset to mislead the Dáil, which I would never do," Mr Brennan said. "If you are asking was there a conspiracy around this speech, the answer is a resounding no."
He said he did not believe there was any pressure on him to "fudge" the issue of ownership.
Asked about a sentence in the speech where Mr Lowry said he had not interfered in any way in the process of selecting the licence competition winner, Mr Brennan said there was no interference by Mr Lowry in terms of arriving at the competition result.
Mr Brennan said Mr Lowry was usually "very tightly reliant" on his draft speech and briefing notes when speaking in the Dáil.
Subsequent to his speech, Mr Lowry was asked about press reports that Mr Desmond had become involved in Digifone. Mr Lowry said that if Mr Desmond was in a position to fund the project and was acceptable to Digifone "then so be it. That is their business, its not my business to determine who should participate." Mr Brennan continues giving evidence today.
