Persona group eager to assist Moriarty with Esat inquiry

A solicitor acting for Persona has been attending the hearings of theMoriarty tribunal in Dublin Castle. The consortium had been the media favourite to win the mobile licence competition, writes Colm Keena.

Representatives of the Persona consortium have been making inquiries in the UK into matters being investigated by the Moriarty tribunal and have said they would be passing on any information discovered to the tribunal. It is understood that this has occurred.

Specifically it is known that a representative of the consortium has met people in England associated with the company that sold the Doncaster Rovers football club grounds to an Isle of Man company in the late 1990s.

Mr Denis O'Brien has said the stadium was bought with his funds and for him.

Last year The Irish Times revealed that at one stage the English solicitor acting for the purchaser, Mr Christopher Vaughan, wrote a letter to Mr Michael Lowry, which was written on the basis that Mr Vaughan believed Mr Lowry was in some way involved in the purchase. The matter is being inquired into by the tribunal.

A solicitor acting for Persona has been attending the hearings of the tribunal in Dublin Castle and the consortium has officially registered its intention to sue the State in relation to the 1995 competition.

If the consortium managed to successfully argue in court that it should have won the competition, and that the licence was unfairly given to Esat Digifone, then the consortium would seek damages from the State of in excess of €100 million.

The Persona consortium comprised, among other parties, Motorola, Sigma Wireless and the ESB. Following the announcement in October 1995 that Esat Digifone had won the licence, the US embassy lobbied the Government in relation to the matter and representatives of the consortium made clear that it was deeply unhappy with the result. The consortium had been the media favourite to win the competition.

Consideration was given at the time by Persona to seeking a judicial review of the decision. It has recently emerged that one of the tribunal's counsel, Mr Jerry Healy SC, was asked by Persona for legal advice in relation to this matter at the time. In the event Persona decided not to seek a judicial review. When the Moriarty tribunal subsequently decided, as a result of inquiries into possible payments from Mr Denis O'Brien to Mr Lowry, to investigate the licence competition, this revived Persona's interest in the competition.

The public hearings being conducted by the Moriarty tribunal have revealed that Persona in fact came a very close second in the competition and that a quantitative evaluation of the bids received, which was to form part of the overall assessment process, was dropped in the course of the process.

One member of the team has said the quantitative evaluation was dropped because it was found to be wholly inadequate. Before the evaluation model was dropped, initial scorings using the model had placed Persona in first position.

The tribunal is conducting an inquiry into the competition process in an effort to establish whether it was interfered with by the then Minister for Transport, Energy and Communications, Mr Lowry, in order to benefit Esat Digifone. If it establishes any such interference in the process, this would provide powerful ammunition to Persona should it seek to sue the State in the High Court.

However, other matters that may be discovered by the tribunal during the course of its hearings, and that may have no direct relevance to the issue of Mr Lowry and corruption, could also be of assistance to Persona. An example would be if it was shown by the tribunal that the assessment team, when evaluating the bids, made some mistake that benefited Esat and worked against the Persona bid.

Financial transactions that the tribunal is inquiring into and which, tenuously or otherwise, link Mr Lowry and Mr O'Brien include two property transactions in the UK. These involve properties in Mansfield and Cheadle.

The English solicitor Mr Christopher Vaughan acted in relation to both transactions.

Also involved were Mr O'Brien's former accountant, Mr Aidan Phelan, and a Northern Ireland businessman, Mr Kevin Phelan. Mr Aidan Phelan and Mr Lowry have said the transactions did not involve Mr O'Brien. Mr O'Brien has said he knew nothing of them at the time. Mr Kevin Phelan has refused to attend to give evidence, as has Mr Vaughan.

The deal that involved Doncaster Rovers involved all of the same people involved in the Mansfield and Cheadle transactions, apart from Mr Lowry. In all of the deals the properties were spotted by Mr Kevin Phelan, who then sought to interest Irish buyers in purchasing them.

Mr Kevin Phelan is understood to have since fallen out with Mr Aidan Phelan over the issue of the fees that he claims he is due from his involvement in the property deals. At one stage Mr Lowry's accountant, Mr Denis O'Connor, became involved in an attempt to settle the dispute between Mr Aidan Phelan and Mr Kevin Phelan over the issue of fees.

The tribunal is investigating the letter first revealed by The Irish Times and that was written by Mr Vaughan in the presumption that Mr Lowry was involved in the Doncaster deal. Mr Vaughan has said the letter was written while he was under a misapprehension but he has not agreed to come to Dublin to state that in evidence.

The tribunal is also investigating the fact that different versions exist of other letters from Mr Vaughan and which concern the Mansfield and Cheadle properties. One version of the letters puts more emphasis on Mr Lowry's involvement than does an alternative version of the letters. This latter version of the letters was the one given to the tribunal.

The fact that different versions of these letters were in existence was first revealed by The Irish Times.

The tribunal is inquiring into the matter with a view to establishing whether it has been the subject of an attempt to mislead it.

The Doncaster stadium was sold by a company associated with an English businessman, Mr Ken Richardson. Mr Richardson has served time in prison in relation to an attempt to burn down the stadium.

This was prior to the sale of the stadium, which is in a city centre site that would be of interest to property developers. Planning permission for the demolition of the stadium is unlikely to be forthcoming until an alternative venue is provided for the Doncaster team.