THE MORIARTY tribunal has made a provisional finding that the State’s second mobile phone licence was issued illegally to Esat Digifone in 1996, according to the consortium’s founder, Denis O’Brien.
Mr O’Brien made his comment at a press conference he called yesterday evening in the Merrion Hotel in Dublin. He had made the claim previously in an interview with a Sunday newspaper.
The tribunal is currently hearing evidence on the question of whether legal advice was given in 1996 concerning a change in the ownership of Esat in the period since the licence was bid for, and if this was a barrier to the licence being issued.
In the period, businessman Dermot Desmond had become a 20 per cent shareholder, replacing four financial institutions which the bid had envisaged would join the consortium.
Richard Nesbitt SC gave evidence last year that he had advised at the time that the licence could be issued.
Mr O’Brien said he had arrived back in Ireland on Thursday evening and read that day’s tribunal transcript.
He said the comment of the chairman, Mr Justice Michael Moriarty, that his forthcoming report would be based on the evidence heard, was a “major and dramatic” change.
He said it would mean that the provisional findings of the tribunal would have to be scrapped. There was “no smoking gun” and “no Frank Dunlop” involved in the tribunal’s hearings. Seventeen “good civil servants” had given evidence that there had been no interference in the licence process, but had “been ignored”.
“I want to be clear: my name, my reputation, is at stake here,” Mr O’Brien said. “We won the licence fair and square.”
On Thursday Mr Justice Moriarty revealed that Mr O’Brien had written to him personally, saying the tribunal was “totally biased” and was “a new low in Irish judicial history”.
Asked about the propriety of writing such a letter to the chairman of the tribunal, Mr O’Brien responded: “Well, who do you write to? I have consistently written to Justice Moriarty.”
He said he believed former attorney general Dermot Gleeson SC should be called to give evidence.
The challenging of the evidence of Mr Nesbitt by the tribunal was “seismic” but it had now been “proven” that Mr Nesbitt was right all along, he said.
Mr O’Brien said the tribunal chairman should explain next week why it was not disclosed until recently that the tribunal had met privately in 2002 with Mr Nesbitt and officials from the attorney general’s office, to discuss Mr Nesbitt’s advice.
Separately, Mr Desmond told The Irish Timesthat huge costs had been incurred over eight years on the legal advice issue because the 2002 meeting had not been disclosed.
