Questions loaded, says counsel

Counsel for Mr Michael Lowry has complained about "loaded" questions being asked by the tribunal which presumed that the former minister had a preferred outcome to the 1995 second mobile-phone licence competition.

The chairman of the tribunal, Mr Justice Moriarty, said he noted the objection but did not accept that questions asked by the tribunal involved any inferences of the type alleged.

Mr Rossa Fanning, for Mr Lowry, said counsel for Mr Lowry were not attending every day of the evidence of Mr Martin Brennan, the civil servant who chaired the team which selected the winner of the 1995 competition. He said a "resources difficulty" had been "fully aired" in correspondence with the tribunal solicitor, Mr John Davis.

Mr Fanning said he wanted to object in relation to a question put to the witness, Mr Brennan, by tribunal counsel, Mr Jerry Healy SC, on Wednesday.

The question concerned a memo which was prepared for Mr Lowry prior to his seeking clearance from government colleagues for the announcement on October 25th, 1995, that Esat Digifone had won the licence competition.

Mr Fanning said the question included the statement that the minister was "being provided with a version of the [assessment team's report] which he wanted" and that he wanted to have a "clear-cut result" which would have to be accepted by the cabinet. He said the question presupposed Mr Lowry had a preferred outcome to the competition process. There had been no evidence to date that such was the case.

Mr Fanning said the question was put in "loaded terms" and that Mr Healy had strayed into an "adjudicative" role which was illegitimate and which was reserved for the chairman. He asked that the question be withdrawn or changed.

He also said he agreed with the point made earlier by Mr Eoin McGonagle SC, for Mr O'Brien, that "not one scintilla of evidence of wrongdoing" by Mr Lowry had yet been heard in the current module of the tribunal.

Mr Justice Moriarty, in response, said Mr Healy's task in questioning Mr Brennan was to probe a number of possible situations. He said he had certainly not made up his mind in any way adverse to Mr Lowry and would not remotely do so until he had heard all the evidence.

He said it was incorrect to criticise Mr Healy for his adopting judgmental formulas necessary for the task of examining the witness.