Moriarty tribunal to hear details of opening statement

The Moriarty tribunal will hear more details from the opening statement in this phase of the inquiry when it resumes in Dublin castle this morning.

Yesterday the tribunal heard that Esat Telecom was top of the list from 6 applications two weeks before the licence was awarded even though doubts were raised about the financial state of one of it's investors.

The tribunal was told that on October 18, 1995 the Esat bid for the second mobile phone licence was the most credible of the six applicants.

The strength of the application was that Esat had provided more documentation than any of the other applicants about it's business proposals.

However the internal government report raised concerns about the financial state of a Denis O'Brien company called Communicor.

The report said that Communicor was in negative equity and suggested that this could cause pose problems if Esat ever got into trading difficulties. The opening statement resumes at 11am.