Civil servant denies ‘concealment’

A KEY member of the project team that evaluated bids for the State’s second mobile phone licence strenuously denied at the Moriarty Tribunal yesterday that civil servants deliberately decided against taking notes of crucial meetings.

Department of Communications officials took no notes of their discussions with winning GSM2 consortium Esat Digifone. Brussels-based former civil servant Fintan Towey said nothing discussed in those meetings gave rise to a motivation for concealment.

However, Mr Coughlan pointed out that “massive issues” relating to Digifone’s ownership, finance and share configuration were raised and the department had made it clear it wanted to be satisfied on these aspects.