Telenor, the Norwegian telecommunications company, insisted yesterday it paid $50,000 to Fine Gael on behalf of Esat Digifone. It said Esat Digifone later repaid it the money, which had been used to pay for a corporate table at a Fine Gael fundraising function in New York in November 1995.
Telenor was a 40 per cent shareholder in the Esat Digifone consortium when it was awarded a mobile telephone licence in October 1995.
The other shareholders were Mr Denis O'Brien's Esat Telecom, which also had a 40 per cent stake, and Mr Dermot Desmond's International Investment & Underwriting, which held the remaining 20 per cent.
Fine Gael's general secretary, Mr Tom Curran, last night issued a 1,300-word statement explaining the background to the donation from the party's point of view.
According to Telenor, it made the payment to Fine Gael through a Jersey bank account in 1995.
Mr Dag Vangsnes, executive vice-president of communications for Telenor mobile, told The Irish Times Telenor had "no reason to believe there was anything funny" with the payment which it had made on behalf of, and at the request of, Esat Digifone.
Mr Vangsnes, when asked to explain how the donation came about, replied: "The situation is very simple. Esat Digifone was not capitalised at that moment in time. We were the finance department of Esat Digifone. We advanced payment according as it was needed.
"Esat Digifone decided to do this as a corporate citizen of Ireland. They wanted to buy one of the tables at a fund-raiser. It was a totally ordinary fund-raiser. There was nothing strange about it at all."
Mr Vangsnes said it was a fund-raising event in New York and Esat Digifone had "taken responsibility for a table".
Asked if it was Mr Denis O'Brien, the former chairman of Esat Digifone who requested the money, Mr Vangsnes said: "Mr O'Brien was the chairman, but let's not use his name. Esat Digifone gave the obligation as far as I know. As chairman you can take on that kind of commitment, but the why and the where the commitment originated, and who made the decision, is not for me to say."
He said Esat Digifone asked for the money from Telenor. Telenor made the payment through a Jersey bank account. Mr Vangsnes said he understood that "all the participants of the fund-raiser for Fine Gael" had paid in the same way.
He said he did not have the payment instructions to hand. "We are an international company, payment instruments, how they do it, where they get it, the best interest rates or whatever. We didn't make the judgment as to whether it was strange at the time. We paid according to the instructions. It was the cashier's department who carried it out, so it was at a very low level, and not investigated. There was no reason to believe there was anything funny with it."
Mr Vangsnes said that once Esat Digifone was capitalised, Telenor had been repaid the money. "We were reimbursed shortly afterwards."
He emphasised that it was Telenor's view that it had not made the contribution, but Esat Digifone. "Telenor never made any party contribution whatsoever. They [Esat Digifone] used us as a bank for all the expenses before they were capitalised up. I see nothing strange about that.