Secrets and security

ESAT Digifone’s 40-strong team worked 12-hour days behind blacked-out windows in basement offices as they prepared the consortium’s bid for the country’s second mobile phone licence, the Moriarty Tribunal heard yesterday.

Former Digifone chairman Denis O’Brien described how in order to guarantee the confidentiality of the team’s work, a short-term lease was taken of premises in Dublin’s Lombard Street East.

He had been told bidders in other markets had gone to extreme lengths to find out what others were up to.