BUSINESSMAN DENIS O’Brien has said chairman of the Moriarty tribunal Mr Justice Michael Moriarty should “step aside” and a retired judge from overseas should be asked to complete the work of the tribunal.
Mr O’Brien, in a statement yesterday, said the tribunal’s legal team should also step aside.
The tribunal has since 2001 been investigating possible financial links between Mr O’Brien and former government minister Michael Lowry.
It has also investigated the process that led to Mr O’Brien’s Esat Digifone being issued with the State’s second mobile phone licence in 1996.
A set of confidential provisional findings were issued in October 2008.
Mr O’Brien said the tribunal would have issued its final report by now if he and others had not pressed for the calling of fresh evidence from key witnesses, including Richard Nesbitt SC and officials from the Office of the Attorney General.
If the provisional findings had been issued as a final report “it would have been a travesty of justice for me and many others, including 17 senior and respected civil servants”.
Referring to the public statement issued by Mr Justice Moriarty on Friday, Mr O’Brien said the tribunal was now seeking to defend its own reputation and performance.
“The Moriarty tribunal should not be permitted to act as a judge in its own case,” he said.
He quoted from the decision last week by Mr Justice Adrian Hardiman in the Supreme Court, in a case taken against the Flood tribunal: “This tribunal manifests two features of a tribunal of inquiry which are, in my opinion, fraught with great risks for justice.
“The first is that the investigative function – that carried out by the gardaí in relation to criminal matters – and the adjudicative function, or the function of making findings – that carried out by the courts in criminal matters – are, in the case of a tribunal, conferred on a . . . single person.”
Mr O’Brien said he was disappointed Mr Justice Moriarty, in his statement, had not given an explanation as to how he had made a mistake in an earlier ruling where he misrepresented the office of the Attorney General on a key matter being considered by the tribunal.
He noted Mr Justice Moriarty’s statement that his final report would be based solely on evidence heard and said the fact remained that the provisional findings were not based on sworn evidence.
“Indeed they were reached in the face of all the sworn evidence given to the tribunal.
“That is why there has been such activity before the tribunal in recent times.”
He said not one witness had said there had been any interference by Mr Lowry in the licence process.