Moriarty to recall civil servants over Esat licence

THE Moriarty Tribunal is expected to recall several senior civil servants who oversaw a competition to award the State’s second mobile phone licence to a consortium headed by millionaire businessman Denis O’Brien next month.

It is understood that the surprise decision to recall three civil servants to give evidence was taken after controversy erupted last week over the discovery of a document which only recently came to the attention of Mr O’Brien.

The inquiry is investigating possible links between former Fine Gael minister Michael Lowry and Mr O’Brien after the latter’s Esat consortium was awarded the mobile phone licence in 1996 by the Government in which Mr Lowry was Minister for Transport, Energy and Communications.