A KEY witness to the Moriarty tribunal said it had consistently misunderstood what it was investigating and appeared to him not to be operating in a neutral way.
Danish telecoms expert Michael Andersen, who has finished his evidence, may have been the final witness to the tribunal, which was set up in 1997. He was giving evidence in relation to the tribunal’s marathon mobile phone licence inquiry.
Prof Andersen, responding to questions from his own counsel, John Gleeson SC, said he met in private with tribunal counsel in 2001-2003 and felt elements of the tribunal were “operating to a pro-Persona, anti-Esat agenda”.
The 1995 mobile phone licence competition was won by Esat Digifone. Persona came second.
Under a ruling from chairman Mr Justice Michael Moriarty, Mr Gleeson was the only counsel allowed to ask Prof Andersen about his view that the tribunal had been operating under a bias.
Prof Andersen said that at one meeting, tribunal counsel Jerry Healy SC suggested options for mast sites mentioned in the Esat bid were not genuine. He found the tribunal’s attitude to be “troubling”.
During discussions on how the bids had been scored, he found the focus was always on the weak points of the Esat bid and the strong points of the Persona bid.
He said the tribunal had repeatedly referred to a chart showing Persona winning the competition even though he had sought to correct the tribunal’s error “time and time again”.
He said that following one communication from the tribunal in 2003, his Danish solicitor had said the tribunal was “working backwards” and had a hidden agenda.
It was clear to him now, he said, that the “backward thinking” spotted by his solicitor came from the fact that the tribunal had a report from “the so-called expert Peter Bacon” and was trying to get him, Prof Andersen, to back up what was in the report. Dr Bacon is an economist the tribunal engaged to write a report on the competition process.
Soon after receiving its first report from Dr Bacon, the tribunal wrote to Prof Andersen telling him his competition evaluation report was “fundamentally flawed”. There was no response to his repeated requests to the tribunal that it substantiate this statement.
He said the tribunal tried to get him to “murder” civil servant Martin Brennan, by trying to get him to agree to negative remarks about Mr Brennan recorded in a disputed memo of a meeting with the tribunal. Mr Brennan led the group that selected the competition winner.
Denis O’Brien, founder of Esat Digifone, provided an indemnity to Prof Andersen earlier this year, leading to his appearance at the tribunal. Prof Andersen confirmed no fee was paid in relation to the indemnity. The tribunal adjourned and is not expected to sit again.