Return of letter seen as 'typical civil servant'

The return of a 1995 letter which had been sent to the Department of Transport, Energy and Communications advising it that Mr Dermot Desmond's IIU Ltd had underwritten some of the Esat Digifone project was "initially regarded as quite funny", the tribunal heard.

It was considered a "typical civil servant thing to do", solicitor to Communicorp, Mr Owen O'Connell told Mr John Coughlan SC, for the tribunal. The letter was sent because the Digifone consortium felt the financial weakness of Mr Denis O'Brien's company, Communicorp, was a significant weakness in the Digifone bid.

Mr O'Connell said he had a recollection that the view, when the letter was sent back to Mr O'Brien, was that at least the involvement of IIU had been put into the minds of the civil servants who were assessing the bids, or at least the mind of Mr Martin Brennan, the head of the assessment group and the man who had sent the letter back to Mr O'Brien. The letter was sent back because the date for the submission of material had passed.

Mr O'Connell said it was also felt that the consortium had done all that it could. He had been very surprised when Mr Brennan subsequently said had not read the letter.

He said there was "a lack of commercial reality" about much of the 1995 negotiations concerning underwriting Digifone as "whoever won the licence was not going to have a moment's difficulty in getting funding".