Lawyers acting for the rail inquiry are expected to go to the High Court today to challenge a stay on the hearings.
The subcommittee investigating a £36 million overshoot on a CI╔ rail signalling project rose shortly before 3 p.m. yesterday after the stay was imposed by Mr Justice Kelly.
His order followed an application by the widow of CI╔'s former chief executive, Mr Michael McDonnell, who claimed a duty to protect her husband's good name and reputation. Mrs Noreen McDonnell said the right to cross-examine witnesses was restricted, even though the investigating subcommittee had already asked questions in relation to her late husband.
Mr McDonnell died in April. He was CI╔'s group chief executive from 1995 until his retirement last January.
The inquiry has heard he was a central figure in CI╔'s deals with the Esat group, which enabled it to construct a telecoms system on Iarnr≤d ╔ireann's railway while the signalling project ran aground.
That link has been in focus this week and Esat's founding chairman, Mr Denis O'Brien, was called again to give evidence yesterday. Despite claiming that the subcommittee's chairman, Mr Seβn Doherty TD, was "unfit" for the post, he answered questions for more than an hour.
There were two central strands to Mr O'Brien's evidence. First, he corrected suggestions he made last week that a "signed letter of intent" cited in Esat's flotation documentation was distinct from heads of agreement the company reached with CI╔ on June 16th, 1997. There was no such distinction, he said. The question was pertinent because CI╔'s solicitor, Mr Michael Carroll, had said the transport group had no knowledge of such a letter of intent.
Second, Mr O'Brien denied there was anything wrong in the rigorous pursuit of the agreement by Esat's former acting chief executive, Mr Leslie Buckley, who worked simultaneously as a director of the telecoms group and as consultant to Iarnr≤d ╔ireann weeks before negotiations between the two began.
Mr O'Brien said: "Either this was an honest and genuine effort by CI╔ staff to develop further income for CI╔ under a deal that was negotiated over many, many months, or else it is being suggested that the management and board and everybody in CI╔ were involved in a shabby conspiracy to defraud CI╔. It's either one or the other." Responding, a subcommittee member, Mr Pat Rabbitte TD, said the inquiry was not suggesting anything.
Earlier, Mr Buckley rejected an observation made by another subcommittee member, Mr Noel O'Flynn TD, that he had been unable in evidence on Tuesday to answer 11 questions. Mr Buckley said he was doing all in his power to help the inquiry, but could not remember certain details surrounding Esat's deal with CI╔.
He was unable to identify a "Pβdraig" referred to in a handwritten minute of a meeting in 1998 between the two companies.
The "Pβdraig" in question was a former Esat director, Mr Pβdraig ╙ hUig∅nn, and he was sitting at the back of the room at that time. When called to give evidence after Mr Buckley, he confirmed he was the person referred to.
A civil servant for 50 years and a former secretary general at the Department of the Taoiseach, Mr ╙ hUig∅nn said he had contacted the office of the Attorney General and the Department of Public Enterprise to enquire about the progress of the statutory instrument that enabled CI╔ to close the deal with Esat.
He could not recall whom he spoke to but said such contact was normal in an "open society". Denying suggestions that he was leveraging his influence, Mr ╙ hUig∅nn claimed he was doing no more than TDs did for their constituents.