O’Brien: corruption conclusion would be ‘devastating’ to Ireland Sunday, July 26, 2009 By John Burke Ireland’s reputation would be severely damaged if the Moriarty Tribunal’s final report concluded there was wrongdoing by civil servants in the granting of the state’s second mobile phone licence, according to businessman Denis O’Brien.
The tribunal is investigating the awarding of the licence to O’Brien’s Esat Digifone in 1996, and he said that if the final report concluded that the process of awarding the licence was corrupt, it would be ‘‘devastating’’.
O’Brien also said that he believes that the manner in which the tribunal is being run suggests to him that the tribunal ‘‘has an agenda’’.
‘‘They are looking for scalps . . . to defend spending €200 million,” O’Brien told The Sunday Business Post.
It emerged last month that the tribunal had made an adverse finding against the state in the manner in which the licence competition was operated by the Department of Communications, at a time when Michael Lowry was minister at the department.
The revelation about the tribunal’s finding was contained in a letter from the chief state solicitor’s office, which was read into the record at the tribunal on June 9. If this finding is upheld, then O’Brien warned that ‘‘the reputation of Ireland will be severely damaged . . .
this is the first time in the history of the state that a group of civil servants [at the Department of Communications] would have been accused of corruption.”.
He estimated that his own legal bill for the tribunal may be €12 million. People who are halfway through their career would be impugned, he said. ‘‘I am taking a stand for the civil servants.”
The tribunal has spent the past decade investigating whether there was any attempt by O’Brien to influence Lowry with regard to the awarding of the licence. Both men have always strenuously denied that there was anything improper about the manner in which the licence was won.
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