Dermot Desmond yesterday failed in his bid to have decisions of the High and Supreme Court over the conduct of the Moriarty Tribunal set aside.

THE consortium beaten to the country's second mobile phone licence will proceed with a multi-million euro civil action against the State irrespective of the Moriarty Tribunal's findings, said Persona chairman Tony Boyle.

SENIOR civil servant Martin Brennan told the Moriarty Tribunal yesterday he would have probed Dermot Desmond’s link to the second mobile phone licence if he had known about the financier’s part in an earlier controversial property deal.