Concerns about report expressed

The Moriarty Tribunal: A civil servant who formed part of the team that selected the winner of the State's second mobile phone licence competition said he had concerns about the report produced by the team but not about the decision as to the winner

Mr John McQuaid, who was director of the telecommunications and radio technology division from 1994 to 1997, said he had no direct contact with the former minister, Mr Michael Lowry, in relation to the assessment of the licence bids during the course of the 1995 competition.

The model which was to be used by the team for evaluating the bids received was agreed on by the project team on June 9th, 1995, he said. The model included qualitative and quantitative evaluation models that it was intended would be used. The six bids were received on August 4th, 1995, and at a meeting of the team on September 4th, the Danish consultants, Andersen Management International, reported on their quantitative evaluation of the bids.

The consultants told the meeting that "certain shortcomings" had emerged in relation to the quantitative evaluations. Mr McQuaid agreed with Ms Jacqueline O'Brien, for the tribunal, that the difficulty had to do with information provided in the bids.

He also agreed that it was a departure from the process envisaged in the evaluation model for there to have been meetings of sub-groups of the team, held for the purpose of conducting evaluations of aspects of the bids, without any departmental members of the team in attendance.

Mr McQuaid said it was the qualitative assessments that provided the outcome of the competition. Mr McQuaid is the 7th civil servant and 5th member of the evaluation team to give evidence to the tribunal in relation to the licence competition. He is to continue giving evidence today.