Dáil debates

Tuesday, 29 March 2011

 

Moriarty Tribunal Report: Statements

8:00 pm

Photo of Michael LowryMichael Lowry (Tipperary North, Independent)

The new tribunal theory in the report of last Tuesday states that somehow or other I managed to get information from the civil servants, which I passed on to Denis O'Brien in some vague way, which assisted Esat Digifone. It also came up with the notion that I brought down a guillotine on the process once I learned that Esat Digifone was in the lead and that I railroaded the decision through colleagues in government and prevented proper scrutiny of the result.

Mr. Moriarty delivered the little nugget and sprinkling of gold dust, obviously anxious to liven up the report, that "Michael Lowry delivered the licence" to Denis O'Brien. Let me make it quite clear that this is very offensive, hurtful, damaging and wrong. The project team, comprising officials from the then Department of Transport, Energy and Communications and the Department of Finance was mandated by the Government to make a decision. It was those officials who made a decision in accordance with the criteria. They conveyed that decision to me as Minister, and as Minister I conveyed it to the Government and the Taoiseach of the day.

I make it clear that I took no step along the way without full consultation and without the full advice and approval of the then Secretary General of the Department, Mr. John Loughrey. Most Members of the House will know Mr. Loughrey as a very experienced, shrewd and cautious senior civil servant. Recently, I rang Mr. Loughrey to ask him how Mr. Moriarty could make a declaration such as he did in his report. I will put on the record what he said, which was that to him it was outrageous and that he would recheck his file and notes on it. He got back to me to tell me that everything that was done was in accordance with procedure and governmental policy. He completely rejected - and I reject - the notion that somehow or other we fast-tracked this process. The decision was made.

I ask the politicians in the House whether they could imagine the appalling vista that would have arisen if we brought this report to Cabinet and the Cabinet decided to reject the decision of the project team and to jump Persona to the number one place. We would all be here today speaking about a decision that had gone horribly wrong because we did not accept the decision of a project team that acted independently of the Government of the day and of me as Minister. It is ludicrous and nonsense for Mr. Moriarty to state that we had that opportunity available to us. We simply had the decision conveyed to us, accepted it and gave it approval. Does any politician here believe that John Bruton, Dick Spring and Proinsias De Rossa would be so stupid as to allow the likes of John Loughrey and me to pull the wool over their eyes in someway or other? I can state as a practising politician that if they were that stupid they should never be in a position to hold any office in government or anywhere else. It is pure madness to suggest that we did what we did. The only reason he said it is that he had to hang something on me to bring home a result.

I make it clear formally and officially that all this about me delivering a licence is complete nonsense. None of this has any basis in fact or evidence. I do not have time to explain the detail of it but I state that the proposition put forward by the tribunal is threadbare in its nature. I can state today with absolute confidence that none of the elements are supported by evidence and they are based on biased logic masquerading as reasoned opinion.

I refer to an issue with which the media have run wild as have some Members of Fianna Fáil. This is the idea put forward by Mr. Moriarty that I manufactured a rumour and put it into the public domain about a former Member of the House, a former Taoiseach. I will deal with this. When I went into the Department and was asked to prioritise bringing competition to the mobile sector my officials called me and we met. They told me much of the groundwork for the competition had been done, that it had to be launched and that it was hugely important for the telecommunications sector and for bringing competitiveness to the economy. I was told one of the obstacles was that to have meaningful and true competition with everybody involved, a rumour circulating had to be dispelled. This rumour was that a former Member of the House had a nest egg and that one of the companies which would compete for the project, namely, Motorola, had been promised it. I did not manufacture that rumour; it was brought to my attention by departmental officials when I went into the Department. The officials went about their business, contacting the big telecommunications groups in the world to tell them there would be an open, free and fair competition which the best bidder would win.

Mr. Moriarty is wrong and if he checks the evidence he will see he is wrong in making that assumption.

I also wish to deal with the issue regarding Ben Dunne. The Moriarty tribunal put this forward as political corruption on my part, a matter involving Ben Dunne and Mark FitzGerald. This opinion, more than any other, astounded me in its brazenness and vindictiveness. I would point out that, contrary to many media reports, the tribunal did not say that I was guilty of corruption. The tribunal has no power to make such findings in any event and this much is abundantly clear from decisions of the Supreme Court. That finding is more of a slur than an actual finding of any substance. This was another sprinkling of Mr. Moriarty's gold dust designed to give the report legs in the media.

I was absolutely open with the tribunal. I told the tribunal in my evidence that I did raise the matter of a rent review arbitration with Mr. Mark FitzGerald. The purpose of my speaking to him was to see if the saga could be advanced. What happened was very simple. Ben Dunne telephoned me. He knew I knew Mark FitzGerald and he asked me to give him a call to ask him "to shove this along". He said he was disillusioned and annoyed at the length of time the arbitration process was taking. I telephoned Mark FitzGerald and I asked him to expedite the matter, nothing less and nothing more.

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