Former civil servant denies impropriety in mobile phone award

A KEY member of the project team that selected Esat Digifone as winner of the State’s second mobile phone licence competition eight years ago has denied he was engaged in “cooking the books.”

Brussels-based former civil servant Fintan Towey rejected the suggestion, made yesterday by John Coughlan SC for the Moriarty Tribunal, during intense questioning on the background to the licence award. When Mr Coughlan also suggested what happened was at the very least "a bit of a mess", Mr Towey said he thought that was a bit extreme as well as inaccurate.

Mr Towey was the full-time coordinator of the project team. As minister for communications, Michael Lowry formally handed over the GSM2 licence to Denis O'Brien's consortium in May 1996 at the end of protracted negotiations that began the previous November. Suggesting that important changes were made to the final report that did not have the backing of the full project team, Mr Coughlan also cited a series of revisions in the documentation that were not explained in text.

"Doesn't it only suggest one thing, Mr Towey a complete cooking of the books to pull this together?" Mr Coughlan said.

Mr Towey replied: "There is no question of that, absolutely no question of that."

State counsel Richard Nesbitt SC said it was unfair to the witness to make an allegation that the books were cooked without letting him know what was in the tribunal's mind as to what might be wrong with the GSM process.

Mr Justice Michael Moriarty said they were conducting a painstaking examination into the entire GSM process.

Anybody looking at the entire proceedings would have to conclude the tribunal's examination in its overall content was restrained, dispassionate and fair.

The tribunal continues today.