Civil servant miffed after announcement by Lowry

FORMER Communications Minister Michael Lowry announced that Esat Digifone had won the GSM2 licence competition two days after civil servants had been given a further week to finalise their evaluation report, the Moriarty Tribunal heard yesterday.

Ed O’Callaghan, one of the project team, made a handwritten note stating the project team effectively had no decision and no final report.

While he was unhappy with the quality of the evaluation report, he had no problem with the result, he pointed out.

Tribunal counsel John Coughlan SC suggested he created the document for his own use because he had a serious concern about what was going on.

Mr O’Callaghan said his only concern was there was not going to be a follow-on project group meeting, and he had also learned the team would not have a further week to finalise their report.

“I think I was more than miffed,” he added. Mr O’Callaghan said there was such a flurry of activity going on at the time and he wanted to put these events in sequence for the sake of clarity. He was also creating a record.

In a note written to him, project member Sean MacMahon recorded telling other team members at their meeting on October 23, 1995 they couldn’t sign off on the report as it was deficient and had not been fully read.

In response, three officials went see department secretary general John Loughrey and Mr O’Callaghan was later informed they were being given a further week to wrap up the report.

The following day another meeting began at 5pm, but he left at 7.15pm while it was still in progress.

Next morning, Mr MacMahon told him he was off to a meeting about the outcome of the GSM process involving Mr Lowry, Mr Loughrey, assistant secretary Sean Fitzgerald and project team chairman Martin Brennan. Mr O’Callaghan said he was in Mr MacMahon’s office at 4.30pm on

October 25 when a phone call came from Jarleth Burke of Esat Telecom, who said the 98FM radio station had been invited to a press conference in the department at 5pm and asked if Mr MacMahon knew what it was about.

Mr MacMahon said he didn’t, and called the department’s press office to find out. The press officer said it was to announce the winner of the GSM competition.