The Danish consultant who is giving evidence to the long running Moriarty tribunal has said he will not be available again until the second half of 2011 if the tribunal is not finished taking evidence from him by the end of next week.
Prof Michael Andersen has also objected to the “angry temper and tone” being adopted by the former tánaiste and attorney general, Michael McDowell SC, who is putting questions to him for the tribunal.
The tribunal, which was set up in 1997, has a pattern of taking significantly longer to deal with witnesses than was envisaged at the outset of sittings.
Prof Andersen was the key consultant to the 1995 mobile phone licence competition that was won by Denis O’Brien’s Esat Digifone. He has told the tribunal that he saw no evidence of any interference in the process and that the best bid won by a significant margin. He has said the 17 civil servants and seven consultants involved all agreed with the result.
The arrival of Prof Andersen in the witness box at this stage is largely as a result of the efforts of Mr O’Brien, yet the businessman is now seeking in the High Court to have the taking of the consultant’s evidence stopped. This is because he does not agree with the tribunal’s decision to engage Mr McDowell SC to take the evidence.
Prof Andersen said it was understandable that Mr O’Brien would give him an indemnity against any costs that might arise, in order to facilitate his appearance at the tribunal. He said he never had any intention to hide the existence of the indemnity. It had been a long-standing pre-condition of his appearance.
Prof Andersen’s counsel John Gleeson SC, objected to the tone being adopted by Mr McDowell. The witness was a recognised expert who had come to give evidence and not to mislead anyone. English was not his mother tongue. Yet he was being subjected by Mr McDowell to what could only be described as “linguistic torture”.
Mr McDowell’s questioning was unmistakingly “being done in the tone of a prosecutor against an accused person”.
He was not criticising Mr McDowell who was acting on instructions. “You sir are the client,” he said to Mr Justice Michael Moriarty.
Mr Justice Moriarty said it had been the practice to adduce the evidence of witnesses and on certain matters to weigh the evidence given. In Prof Andersen’s case it was “not realistic” to “rigidly demarcate” the two for a number of reasons, including the existence of the indemnity from Mr O’Brien.
