‘Nothing sinister about absence of Digifone meeting records’

FORMER department secretary general John Loughrey insisted yesterday there was nothing sinister in the fact that civil servants took no notes of vital meetings with Esat Digifone executives just days before the consortium got the country’s second GSM licence.

But given the gravity of the negotiations, Mr Loughrey who headed the Department of Communications until he retired three years ago expressed his disappointment that the officials kept no records.

At the time, the officials were anxiously trying to establish if Denis O'Brien's Communicorp Group could meet its financial obligations to the consortium.