It is important to state that in 1995, when the final decision was made to award the licence to Esat Digifone, normal Cabinet procedures were ignored. This begs the question as to how members of the then Cabinet allowed themselves to be bypassed in this manner, whereby, in effect, the then Minister, Deputy Lowry, got the agreement of the party leaders to go ahead and announce the award of the licence to Esat Digifone without the approval of the Cabinet. The decision was brought to the Cabinet the following day for noting. In effect, members of the Cabinet had no direct input into the awarding of the most valuable licence by any Government in the history of the State.

See this item in context