O’Reilly ‘took revenge in editorial’

TONY O’REILLY was so embittered by his company’s failure to land the second mobile phone licence he took revenge on Fine Gael, the Moriarty Tribunal was told yesterday.

It came in the form of a front-page editorial in the Irish Independent.

The editorial, published on the day of the 1997 general election, told voters to oust the Fine Gael-led coalition.

The billionaire owner of the Irish Independent denies the allegations made to the tribunal by former Fine Gael TD Michael Lowry.

Mr Lowry, who was the Minister for Communications when the licence was awarded to Mr O’Reilly’s rivals Esat Digifone, has told the tribunal the media mogul made it clear to Fine Gael that Mr Lowry was ‘persona non grata’.

Then Taoiseach John Bruton was personally informed by Mr O’Reilly that he was seriously aggrieved over the decision to award the licence to Esat and not to his consortium.

The front-page editorial in the Irish Independent on the day of the 1997 election urged the electorate not to vote for the Fine Gael-led coalition, the tribunal heard yesterday. The headline concluded “it’s payback time”.

During the mid-1990s, the Fine Gael party believed Tony O’Reilly’s dislike of the Rainbow Coalition was being reflected in political coverage in the Independent newspaper group.

Mr Lowry, who announced Esat’s victory in October 1995, has told the tribunal the then Taoiseach John Bruton met with Mr O’Reilly in Cork in August 1996.

Mr Bruton told a meeting oF FG ministers Mr O’Reilly, who was a major backer of a consortium that failed to get the country’s second mobile phone licence, was seriously aggrieved.

In a lengthy reply rejecting Mr Lowry’s claims, Mr O’Reilly told the tribunal: “I am very surprised that Mr Lowry is making unfounded allegations against me and can only suspect that he is doing so in order to cause me as much damage as possible.”

Mr O’Reilly said he believed he first met Mr Lowry at the opening of the Arcon mine in Co Kilkenny on September 15, 1995.

He claimed the then Communications Minister said “your fellas didn’t do too well today”.

Mr O’Reilly said the minister explained he was referring to the AT&T representatives who had earlier that day made a presentation to the departmental panel in charge of selecting the successful GSM applicant. AT&T was part of the Independent group’s Irish Cellular Telephones consortium.