Ex-civil servant stands over mobile licence report

FORMER civil servant Fintan Towey told the Moriarty Tribunal yesterday he stood over the evaluation report that selected Esat Digifone as winner of the competition for the state’s second mobile phone licence.

He was happy the result was consistent with the Government's selection criteria, he told Eoin McGonigal SC, for former Digifone consortium chairman Denis O'Brien.

Mr Towey said he was also happy the civil servants who comprised the project team were fully in agreement with the report at their final meeting on October 24, 1995. He believed it was an objective analysis and he agreed he had not been influenced by anything other than those things he should have been influenced by. He was happy to stand over the report.

Mr Towey was questioned about the letter from Dermot Desmond's company, International Investments and Underwriting Ltd, which arrived in the Department of Communications on September 29, 1995.

Stating IIU had arranged to underwrite about 60% of the consortium's equity, the letter provided the first link between the financier and Mr O'Brien's consortium. It only officially emerged that Mr Desmond was also a 25% shareholder in Digifone a month before the May 1996 issue of the GSM2 licence.

Since the six bidders for the licence had been told during oral presentations in the department earlier in September 1995 they must not provide additional information relating to their applications unless specifically requested, Mr Towey returned the letter.