THE MORIARTY tribunal is to sit next week to hear evidence that will be crucial to its findings on the 1995 mobile phone licence won by Denis O’Brien’s Esat Digifone.
The opening part of the sitting is expected to feature a dispute between counsel for Mr O’Brien and the tribunal over the extent of the evidence that can be given.
The tribunal, which issued its confidential preliminary findings in November 2008, is to hear evidence from Danish consultant Michael Andersen who played a key role in the 1995 competition that was won by Esat.
Mr Andersen had declined to give evidence to the tribunal during its original hearings after unsuccessfully seeking an indemnity from the State. However, in April of this year solicitors for Mr O’Brien contacted the tribunal to tell it Mr Andersen was now willing to come to give evidence. They also supplied the tribunal with a copy of a statement of intended evidence from Mr Andersen in which he expressed the view that the then communications minister, Michael Lowry, did not interfere with the 1995 competition.
Mr Andersen is a hugely experienced consultant to telecoms competitions and said he would have noticed if there had been interference.
The tribunal has now circulated a copy of the statement from Mr Andersen to interested parties but has redacted a substantial number of paragraphs from it. Many of these concern negative comments by Mr Andersen about the tribunal, its inquiry and its findings. They include comments about tribunal counsel Jerry Healy SC.
Mr Healy acted for the Persona consortium which failed to win the 1995 competition and complained to the European Commission in the wake of the result.
The full version of Mr Andersen’s statement was copied to interested parties by Mr O’Brien’s legal team in April. Mr O’Brien has since confirmed that he has indemnified Mr Andersen for any costs he may incur as a result of his agreeing to appear before the tribunal.
Yesterday a spokesman for Mr O’Brien said the businessman was very disturbed by the tribunal’s decision to redact or edit Mr Andersen’s statement. “No court in the country would interfere with a witness statement in this manner,” he said. He said Mr O’Brien would be considering all the options open to him.
Mr Andersen was contacted by solicitors from Mr O’Brien’s team as part of the process whereby confidential preliminary findings, issued by the tribunal in November 2008, are being contested by parties who do not agree with them. The contact occurred in the wake of evidence from officials from the Attorney General’s Office that prompted the tribunal to admit that “significant errors” were made in relation to certain key provisional findings.
The tribunal has inquired into possible financial links between Mr O’Brien and Mr Lowry, as well as interference by Mr Lowry in the licence process. In media interviews last year Mr O’Brien said the tribunal had found that he had a corrupt relationship with Mr Lowry.
Mr Andersen’s evidence is likely to take more than two weeks.
Lowry v Smyth: Tipperary TD to seek order against journalist
THE TIPPERARY politician Michael Lowry is to seek a summary order of the Circuit Court tomorrow against the journalist Sam Smyth.
The case is being taken under section 34 of the Defamation Act 2009, which allows a court give a summary ruling where a defamatory statement has been made and where the defendant has no defence likely to succeed. Smyth will contest the application.
The case concerns comments made by Smyth about the inquiry into Mr Lowry being conducted by the Moriarty tribunal. The tribunal, which is scheduled to sit next week for crucial hearings, last sat in March of this year.
Mr Lowry is alleging that comments made by Smyth on the Tonight With Vincent Browneshow on TV3 in June, and an article he wrote in the Irish Independentin May, were defamatory. In both instances the comments concerned the tribunal's inquiries.
Smyth has been covering matters to do with Mr Lowry since the mid-1990s. His story in November 1996 about Mr Lowry’s home in Co Tipperary being renovated at the cost of Dunnes Stores led to his resignation from government.
Mr Lowry’s affairs were later investigated by the McCracken (Dunnes Payments) tribunal, the Revenue Commissioners and more recently, the Moriarty tribunal.
Unusually, Mr Lowry initiated proceedings against Smyth but not against the media outlets that published the allegedly defamatory statements. The comments concerned the tribunal’s inquiries into possible links between Mr Lowry and businessman Denis O’Brien, whose Esat Digifone won the State’s second mobile phone licence when Mr Lowry was communications minister. Mr O’Brien has threatened identical proceedings against Smyth.
