Moriarty: O'Reilly furious at not winning licence

The Moriarty Tribunal has heard that Dr Tony O'Reilly was furious at not winning the second mobile phone licence.

The inquiry heard he was so annoyed the Irish Independent asked the electorate to vote the rainbow coalition out of office in the 1997 General Election.

Following the failure, Dr O'Reilly met the then Taoiseach John Bruton where he made his anger known.

In a subsequent meeting, Sean Donlon of Fine Gael met executives from Independent Newspapers and was told Michael Lowry was 'persona non gratis'.

The Tribunal heard that just before the 1997 General Election the Irish Independent carried a headline, "Its payback time", a strong reference to getting Fine Gael, Labour and Democratic Left out of office.