Civil servant can shed no light on letter leak

A SENIOR civil servant who headed the project team that vetted applicants for the country’s second mobile telephone licence could shed no light for the tribunal yesterday on how an executive linked to Esat Digifone’s successful bid received a copy of top-level EU correspondence.

The tribunal is examining how the first page of former EU Competition Commissioner Karen Van Miert’s letter to former Communications Minister Michael Lowry ended up in the file of Jarleth Burke, a solicitor acting for Esat Telecom.

One of Denis O’Brien’s former companies, Esat Telecom, was backing the Esat Digifone consortium that won the second GSM licence in October 1995.