Moriarty Tribunal: Public relations adviser Ms Eileen Gleeson told the tribunal that the Esat Digifone team was surprised when it heard on October 25th, 1995, that the Department of Transport, Energy and Communications was to hold a press conference that day to announce the winner of the second mobile phone licence competition.
"The announcement came earlier than was expected," she told Ms Jacqueline O'Brien, for the tribunal. She said that on the morning of the 25th the Cork Examiner carried a story stating who was expected to win the licence. The story did not mention Esat Digifone as being likely to win and Mr Denis O'Brien and others in the Esat team were "upset" by the piece, as they felt the article could be based on information coming from the Department. Ms Gleeson said she was not aware of any information being leaked from the Department during the course of the 1995 competition, either to Esat or the media.
She said when it was announced on the afternoon of October 25th that Esat Digifone had won, there was a lot of surprise expressed in the media.
She said the consortium's strategy of keeping secret Esat Digifone's intention to make a bid in order to prevent it being considered one of the favourites, may have rebounded when it won the licence.
"When the media and other contenders did not consider us as favourites, then the fact that we had won only served to propagate stories about how this could possibly happen." Ms Gleeson is chairman of Shankwick FCC and, in a personal capacity, adviser to the President, Mrs McAleese. She has acted as adviser to Mr Dermot Desmond, who was a 20 per cent shareholder in Esat Digifone.
She said she believed she had not known on October 25th that Mr Desmond was involved in the consortium. If she had known she would have called Mr Desmond on his mobile phone and she had no memory of doing so.
She believed she learned in the weeks following the announcement, of Mr Desmond's involvement.
She recalled being pleased when told of Mr Desmond's involvement "both because I knew that Dermot and Denis would work well on something to which they were both committed to, and as I knew that Dermot was someone who Denis could rely on to take on any role with dedication to success." Ms Gleeson said Mr Desmond went through a "fairly rough" period with the media following the Johnston Mooney and O'Brien site controversy in the early 1990s.
At the end of yesterday's hearing the chairman, Mr Justice Moriarty, said it was not the case as reported in The Irish Times that the tribunal had 15 civil servants working for it.
The amount of back room staff available was not quite so "grandiose". In fact there were 15 people overall assigned to the tribunal, including himself, the legal staff, office staff and the court crier.
He understood this was less than 25 per cent of the numbers working for "at least some of the other agencies with which this agency is on occasion coupled".
The tribunal adjourned and is expected to resume hearings in two weeks.
