O'Brien seriously considered payment, tribunal hears

The Moriarty tribunal heard today that the former Esat Digifone chairman Mr Denis O'Brien seriously considered making a payment of £100,000to the then Minister for Communications, Mr Michael Lowry.

The admission came in the form of notes from a meeting of the board of Esat Digifone held in November 1997, read out at the tribunal this morning.

Mr Denis O'Brien seriously considered making a £100,000 payment to the then Minister for Communications, Mr Michael Lowry, the tribunal heard.

Mr O'Brien then concluded it was a "hare-brained scheme" and that he "realised that it would be misinterpreted".

The meeting was called to investigate allegations about payments Mr O'Brien was said to have made to Mr Lowry and a payment of $50,000 by Telenor to Fine Gael.

Mr O'Brien admitted to the meeting by conference call that he had considered paying Mr Lowry, as "everyone knew" his company Streamline was in financial difficulties, but said to himself: "I'm mad".

"I had no understanding with him [Mr Lowry], and no favours were asked for or gained," he said.

He said no money from his Woodchester Bank account was ever transferred to Mr Lowry.

The tribunal heard Mr O'Brien told the meeting Mr Lowry had been of valuable service to Esat.

"Lowry was always fair with us," he said. "He could have said the auto-diallers were illegal and this would have shut us down."

Esat was relying on the auto-dialler technology to re-route international calls from the eircom network.

In 1997, the telecoms regulator, Ms Etain Doyle, had warned Esat about the technology and threatened to withdraw their licence if they continued with its use.

The board meeting was held in the offices of IIU, the company owned by Mr Dermot Desmond, who was a major shareholder in Esat Telecom.

It was called to investigate claims of impropriety over an alleged payment to Mr Lowry and the donation by Telenor, at the behest of Mr O'Brien, of $50,000 to the Fine Gael party.

The meeting took place mere days before Esat Telecom was to hold its IPO in November 1997. There were fears over the legal implications of any wrongdoing to the future of the company, the meeting heard.

Mr John Fortune, an Esat Digifone director appointed by Telenor, said the alleged payment to Fine Gael "looks fishy" and could "implicate Esat Telecom".