‘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.

Another major issue concerned the role of financier Dermot Desmond, whose IIU company held a significant minority stake which was unknown to the department until a month before the licence was issued.

As well as there being no official records of crucial meetings, nobody in the department was apparently able to shed any light on what had happened at the series of meetings in May 1996, tribunal lawyer John Coughlan SC observed.

"I do not believe there is any question of anything untoward in failing to record the meetings," replied Mr Loughrey.

Mr Coughlan asked: "Isn't that the natural question which arises from a member of the public when matters as delicate as this are being negotiated and discussed that the absence of a record or a recollection of such meetings could lead a member of the public to the view that what was going on here was concealment, or suppression?"

Mr Loughrey conceded people could draw that inference, but it was open to an interpretation that was less innocent than the one he had given.

Counsel said the period culminating in the signing-off of the licence was causing the tribunal great concern.

Until Telenor executive Arve Johansen sent a memo of his intended evidence, the tribunal had not known a meeting took place between Digifone personnel and department officials.

When the matter was taken up with officials in the department, following receipt of Mr Johansen's memo, nobody in the department had recollection of this particular meeting and there were no documentary records of the meeting, said counsel.

It was only when the matter was taken up with Digifone's solicitors that notes made by Digifone solicitor Owen O'Connell became available. These notes confirmed that meetings had taken place and what had transpired at them.

Mr Loughrey conceded that if the department's recording procedures were not adequate then the tribunal should be concerned. But he didn't believe for a moment there was anything sinister behind the lack of records.

As a junior civil servant almost 40 years ago he recorded everything at meetings.

We had the luxury and the time to do it, he added Questioned about a letter IIU accountants Farrell Grant Sparks sent to the department that said Mr Desmond was worth £77m, Mr Loughrey said he deemed the information was sufficient. He said Mr Desmond's commitment was for £17.3m but agreed the department didn't know his liabilities.