Kenny says lesson to be drawn from Moriarty

TAOISEACH ENDA Kenny said he and others who were ministers when the second mobile phone licence was issued would answer questions in the Dáil on the Moriarty report.

Mr Kenny was responding to Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin, who said the report’s findings had “grave implications for the State and the taxpayer, and represented a damning indictment on the collective decision taken by the then government in the awarding of the mobile telephone licence and in the process that led to its award”.

Mr Kenny rejected a proposal from Mr Martin that the Dáil hold a special sitting next Monday to discuss the report.

Mr Martin said six members of the current Government had sat around the cabinet table when “that most valuable” licence was awarded. The Taoiseach should facilitate an opportunity to those ministers to account for their role in the decision and their perspective on how the licence was awarded.

Mr Kenny said he was informed of the pending publication of the report as he walked to a Cabinet meeting yesterday morning. The report deserved the most serious analysis.

“It deserves to be read seriously, which I intend to do. There are lessons to be drawn from it and they will be drawn from it.”

Mr Kenny said he had not seen the report, and had not had time to even glance through any of its 2,500 pages. “I have heard some comment in the media, but this is a report that deserves serious analysis and it will get that from the Government.”

Mr Martin said the report was no small issue and had enormous implications, financial and political, for the State.

While it was detailed and complex, there were two core points: what happened before the licence was awarded, promoting the interests of one bidder; and what happened afterwards.

He challenged the Taoiseach to explain his personal level of knowledge of “the pervasive culture” at the time when Esat Digifone raised “its level of influence within Fine Gael and over Fine Gael via the many donations it made”.

Mr Martin said a strong link was made in the report between “what is termed a pattern of significant, conspicuous financial support to Fine Gael and, ultimately, the decision arrived at in relation to the awarding of the licence”.

Mr Kenny said he was glad the report was published and it would be discussed in the Dáil in due course. “Obviously, the report refers to the Civil Service, politicians, the processes by which government decisions are arrived at and by which government does its business.”

All members of the House were constrained by the fact that there were at least four, if not six, cases pending before the High Court and the Supreme Court on the matter. “The lessons to be learned from this will be learned from it.”

Mr Martin said there was “a damning conclusion from the chairman of the tribunal in relation to your party’s lack of co-operation . . . concealment . . . a decision not to open up and give details of a donation to the tribunal”.

Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams asked Mr Kenny if Fine Gael had “received any other monies from Denis O’Brien or any of his companies” and when the Dáil would have an opportunity to discuss the matter. Mr Kenny said he wanted to study the report, adding that the Government would respond to it and the Dáil would have an opportunity to discuss it.