Protesters defame O’Brien, says solicitor

ANTI-BIN charge protesters received a solicitor’s letter threatening legal action an hour after announcing they would picket Dublin Castle to coincide with the appearance of businessman Denis O’Brien before the Moriarty Tribunal yesterday.

Spokesman Richard Boyd Barrett, of the Socialist Workers’ Party (SWP), said they would not retract any of the contents of an issued press release, described by William Fry Solicitors, for Mr O’Brien, as being defamatory of their client.

At the tribunal entrance, Boyd Barrett, chairman of Dun Laoghaire/Rathdown Anti-Bin Tax Campaign, led about a dozen protesters who held placards showing a photograph of Mr O’Brien. The solicitors for the Algarve-based businessman took issue with the press release, which contrasted the treatment of Mr O’Brien with that of bin tax protesters.

William Fry’s email to Mr Boyd Barrett and SWP colleague Bríd Smith said the press release was defamatory of Mr O’Brien. “It states, among other things, that he has been involved in scandalously corrupt activity and that he was granted a mobile phone licence as a result of payments he made to former Minister for Communications Michael Lowry. These assertions are false. Our client seeks in no way to impact upon the right of the anti-bin tax campaign to public protest. He accepts, further, as someone in the public eye that he is necessarily the subject of both praise and criticism. He cannot, however, allow the slurs of the sort contained in your media release to remain on his good name.”

Inside Dublin Castle, Mr O’Brien told tribunal lawyer John Coughlan SC he “went too far” in trying to please officials in the Department of Communications about the financial strength of his Communicorp Group, who were seeking the country’s second mobile phone licence with Norwegian telecoms firm Telenor.

During an oral presentation on September 12, 1995 Mr O’Brien told civil servants he had a guarantee for £30 million from US-based venture capital company Advent International. During close questioning by Mr Coughlan, he pointed out he had two letters from Advent’s managing director for Europe Massimo Prelz as well as Mr Prelz’s “verbal agreement.”

Within a few days of the presentation in the department, consultants Pádraig Ó hUiginn, former secretary Department of the Taoiseach and former Government Press Secretary PJ Mara felt it would be desirable to strengthen up Communicorp’s finances.

However, Mr O’Brien’s proposed deal with Advent was replaced shortly after financier Dermot Desmond offered to underwrite Communicorp’s exposure and to take up equity in the Esat Digifone consortium. According to Mr O’Brien, it was by chance the financier made his offer as both men returned to Dublin by private jet in August 1995 after watching Glasgow Celtic. Mr Desmond suggested they adjourn down to the back of the plane. No business had been discussed that day until Mr Desmond offered to underwrite Communicorp in return for a stake in the consortium.

Over a number of weeks solicitors for the two men hammered out an agreement, which was formally signed in late September. Mr O’Brien described how his own father, Denis O’Brien senior, was present in his Dublin office when he “shook hands” on the arrangement during a telephone call with Mr Desmond, who was then in Barbados.