Broughan says decision of rainbow coalition 'appalling'

A GOVERNMENT backbencher has condemned the Fine Gael, Labour and Democratic Left rainbow coalition of the mid-1990s.

Labour TD Tommy Broughan (Dublin North East) said it was “appalling” that a decision of the magnitude of the contract for the State’s second mobile phone licence was announced at a Cabinet subcommittee meeting.

Mr Broughan said the Moriarty report was a “horrific reflection” on Fine Gael, former minister Michael Lowry, businessman Denis O’Brien, the Department of Communications and the rainbow government of the mid-1990s.

Mr Broughan, who became a Labour TD in 1992, said “the second GSM mobile licence was a licence to print money. Everybody knew it at the time.”

It “therefore beggars belief” that the department and “the rainbow coalition . . . decided to issue a second GSM licence for derisory sums of between £5 million and £15 million”.

In his speech during the debate on the Moriarty report, he said Mr Justice Michael Moriarty described the system to sell off the mobile phone licence as a “hybrid auction and beauty contest approach”.

That process had “all the serious difficulties of such competitions without the huge financial benefits which a simple auction would have brought the Irish people”.

It was “appalling that a decision of this magnitude for a contract that was so valuable was announced at a cabinet subcommittee called to examine aviation matters and including Deputy Lowry, then taoiseach John Bruton and then ministers Dick Spring, Ruairí Quinn and Proinsias De Rossa”.

The Department of Finance had opposed the “beauty contest” and wanted an auction. “If this is the correct view, why did the department and the then minister Quinn not insist on the auction route?”

Minister for Education Ruairí Quinn said he was “completely satisfied that the events, as recounted in the tribunal report, are entirely consistent with my own recollection” and his evidence.

He referred to the 1995 meeting at which Mr Lowry said the process had been completed and Esat Digifone was the “clear winner”.

“I simply did not have the time to read and review the memorandum prepared by an official in my department regarding the mobile phone licence competition. I had no knowledge of the outcome of the competition before attending the party leaders’ meeting.”

Mr Lowry had presented a league table score covering each of the six applicants. Mr Quinn said given the scores, he was satisfied a “clear winner” was picked. The cabinet did not know at the time that the scores were presented in misleading and factually inaccurate manner, he added.