Lowry ‘pressurised ESB to allow Esat masts’

FORMER Communications Minister Michael Lowry put the ESB under pressure to allow Esat Digifone masts and antennae for mobile phones onto some of its key sites, the Moriarty Tribunal was told yesterday.

The minister threatened to introduce regulations to force ESB to allow the Esat masts, if the ESB was unwilling to co-operate.

At the time, ESB was a member of the Persona Telephony Company consortium next in line to be considered for the second GSM licence if Denis O’Brien’s Digifone failed to satisfy the requirements for the issuing of the licence. Mr Lowry applied pressure on ESB to allow the Esat masts and antennae on its properties four months after Esat had been granted the licence. However, the licence was subject to a number of conditions, and if Esat failed to meet these, then the consortium the ESB was part of would have been awarded the licence.

However, neither Mr Lowry nor his department informed the ESB that Persona were in second position to get the licence in the event that the negotiations with Esat Digifone failed.

It also emerged yesterday that Mr Lowry informed Esat that the ESB was happy to allow Esat locate its antennae and masts on certain ESB properties. But the ESB denies ever telling Mr Lowry that this was OK. Mr Lowry’s intervention came after a series of letters during February 1996 between ESB chairman Billy McCann and Esat director Pádraig Ó hUiginn. Mr McCann informed Mr Ó hUiginn ESB would be willing to discuss arrangements for use of its sites once the GSM licence was issued.

In his letter to Mr McCann, Mr Lowry said it was government policy to support “co-location wherever feasible.” He said he was writing to all State companies who operated communication sites to urge maximum co-operation.

He warned: “Indeed, if this cannot be achieved by voluntary means I will have to consider whether there is a role for the regulatory and licensing process to address these issues in the overall interest of developing communications infrastructure.”

In his letter, dated March 27, 1997, the minister noted the ESB felt precluded from agreeing arrangements with other parties because of its link with Persona. “I cannot accept this as a valid justification for not co-operating on matters which would overcome planning difficulties, possibly on a reciprocal basis,” he told Mr McCann.

Mr Ó hUiginn said Esat understood from their meeting with Mr Lowry that ESB had said to the minister they were prepared to allow Esat Digifone to co-locate on their structures “in accordance with government policy.”