O’Brien spends €7.5m on tribunal advisers

BUSINESSMAN Denis O’Brien, who has spent €7.5 million on advisers, yesterday called on the Moriarty Tribunal to wind up its public inquiry into the awarding of the country’s second mobile phone licence.

The Portuguese-based multimillionaire has spent €7.5 million on advisers as a result of the long-running probe, his counsel told the tribunal heard yesterday.

Mr O’Brien headed the international consortium that won the right to negotiate for the second GSM network nearly 10 years ago.

Most of the lawyers who appeared at Dublin Castle yesterday to make submissions on what should happen next, urged the tribunal to pull the plug on the inquiry after an examination that has lasted 137 days.

To date the tribunal has cost the State €15m, with several million going to the legal team.

Tribunal chairman Mr Justice Michael Moriarty said he would give his ruling before the end of next week on whether he will abandon this part of the inquiry.

Lawyers for former Communications Minister Michael Lowry joined in the calls to close down the inquiry.

The Oireachtas set up the tribunal in September 1997 to inquire whether there was any wrongdoing on the part of Mr Lowry, whose department had charge of the evaluation process.

Lawyers for both Mr O’Brien and Mr Lowry focused on the tribunal’s failure to get evidence from a key player in the GSM evaluation process.

For some time Danish international consultant Michael Andersen has been refusing - for a variety of reasons - to travel to Dublin to provide evidence.

In recent months the Government turned down Mr Andersen’s request to be given an indemnity against the risk of being sued for damages by disappointed bidders if he agreed to testify in Dublin.

Mr Andersen was lead consultant to a top civil service team in the Department of Communications that selected Mr O’Brien’s consortium in October 1995.

According to Eoin McGonigal SC, for Mr O’Brien, Mr Andersen was an acknowledged expert in the field and had created the model used to evaluate the six consortiums that applied for the Irish licence.

He said all the evidence before the tribunal was based on Mr Andersen and his Danish team giving evidence.

Mr Andersen had created, overseen and policed the GSM process but now was not available.