Firm’s financial status played down

THE expert project group that selected Esat Digifone to run the country’s second mobile telephone licence played down the financial status of Denis O’Brien’s Communicorp group, the Moriarty Tribunal heard yesterday.

Just days before former Communications Minister Michael Lowry announced Esat as the winner, the project group was reporting that Communicorp, one of the consortium members, had negative equity. Referring to the O'Brien company, the GSM project group said the weakest point concerning Esat's application related not to the application, but the applicant behind the application.

The group's report, dated October 3, 1995, noted: "Should the consortium meet with temporary or permanent opposition this could, in the worst case situation, turn out to be critical, in particular to matters concerning solvency." Between then and October 18, 1995, the reference to the "weakest point" was changed to "maybe the weakest point". The project team which vetted all six applications for the GSM licence comprised civil servants from the Department of Communication and Department of Finance as well as Danish consultants Andersen Management International.