Officials keen to know who owned consortium that won licence

FORMER civil servant Fintan Towey yesterday denied the reason department officials took no notes of a key meeting with Esat Digifone was to conceal what was being discussed before the GSM2 licence was issued.

Department of Communication officials were extremely concerned to know who owned the consortium that had won the state’s second mobile phone licence competition, the Moriarty Tribunal heard.

The May 3, 1996 meeting was the first encounter since a letter dated April 17 informed officials that Dermot Desmond was a 25% shareholder in the winning consortium. The tribunal only learned of the May 3 meeting through a note in the papers of former Digifone solicitor Owen O’Connell.