Mr Denis O'Brien told the Moriarty tribunal this morning that he sought a meeting with the former Minister for Communications, Mr Michael Lowry, to lobby him on issues relating to the telecommunications market and to ask him if there would be a second State mobile phone licence.
Mr O'Brien, whose Esat Digifone consortium won the competition for the State's second GSM licence in October 1995, is being examined on his statement to the tribunal.
He told the tribunal yesterday there had been no "luck" involved in Esat winning the licence, but that it had done so because it was better prepared than all the other applicants.
The meeting with the minister, which took place in early 1995, was arranged by the late Fine Gael TD Mr Jim Mitchell, who had been engaged as a consultant by Mr O'Brien the previous year.
Mr Lowry had become minister in November 1994 when the Rainbow Coalition, made up of Fine Gael, Labour and Democratic Left, took office.
Mr O'Brien said the meeting had been "a long time ago" but he thought Mr Mitchell would have phoned him to tell him there was "no problem" and that the minister would meet him.
He could not recollect where the meeting took place, but agreed it may have taken place at Esat's head office in Dublin.
Mr O'Brien said the meeting was about 15 minutes long and he believed Mr Mitchell was present.
He wanted to meet Mr Lowry to tell him of his experiences in the telecommunications market, which were "pretty appalling". He said his company had been "stopped and tripped" and he wanted to see if the minister could "do something".
Mr O'Brien wanted to raise the issue of capacity from Telecom Eireann and also to see if there was going to be a second mobile phone licence.
Questioned by Mr John Coughlan SC for the tribunal, Mr O'Brien said that if one was a "player" in a market and dependent on the government for liberalisation of a market, the "key" person to meet was the minister.
He said he had not wanted to blind Mr Lowry with jargon at the first meeting but had simply wanted to introduce himself and explain what his company was doing as a "courtesy".
Mr O'Brien said he had no recollection of being told by Mr Jim Mitchell that he was "not favoured" by the Department of Communications or that he was viewed as a Fianna Fail supporter.
Questioned on the breakdown of talks with the company South Western Bell on a planned link with the Esat licence bid, Mr O'Brien said the company had "never really realised thay had a great Irish partner that could bring tremendous advantage to them"."Big corporations can be the big, swinging dick and they behave that way because they have the power. They lost a great opportunity," he said.
The tribunal continues this afternoon.