Official surprised at speed of licence announcement

THE speed at which Michael Lowry announced Esat Digifone as winner of the competition for the State’s second mobile phone licence surprised former top civil servant Fintan Towey, the Moriarty Tribunal heard yesterday.

Mr Towey worked through the night of October 24, 1995 to make sure the final report was ready but the former communication's minister informed the Taoiseach and other leaders of the Fine Gael-led Rainbow Coalition without seeing the document.

"It all happened very, very quickly," said Brussels-based Mr Towey, who acted as full-time co-ordinator of the project team that evaluated the six GSM2 contenders eight years ago.

"I think my view would have been the decision was reached more quickly than I would have anticipated. My working assumption, I believe, would have been that the decision would have been made at a government meeting," he added.

Mr Towey recounted a conference call being arranged between himself, project team chairman Martin Brennan and the Danish consultant Michael Andersen in order to get agreement on amendments to the final report on the day the GSM2 result was made public.

Tribunal lawyer John Coughlan SC pressed the witness about his belief that at the time Mr Lowry

announced the result, there was a copy of the final version of the report in the department though nobody in the department seemed to be able to put their hands on such a copy.

Mr Towey agreed it was usual practice for a minister going to government for a decision to be in possession of the report on which the decision would be based so he could tell Cabinet colleagues he had seen the report.

"It was clear the minister was anxious to bring a finality to this process as quickly as possible after the report was done.

"My understanding of that was it was better to do that as quickly as possible in order to avoid the development of intense lobbying which would place the Government in a more difficult position," he said.

Recalling the evidence given by other senior departmental officials, Mr Towey said that he accepted at the time it was a good idea to get the matter announced as quickly as possible.

"I believe it was the right advice in public administration terms, but I can't personally take any credit for the advice," he said.

But Mr Coughlan pointed out that Mr Towey's proposition was based on the minister having the report.

While nobody expected the minister to read through every portion of every report, the minister's safeguard was the report he had in his possession.

According to the evidence of former department secretary John Loughrey, counsel noted, the minister didn't have the report at the time. The tribunal resumes next Tuesday.