O'Brien says he can satisfy tribunal over Lowry payments

The multimillionaire businessman Mr Denis O'Brien has said he is "confident" he will be able to deal with payments involving him and the former Fine Gael minister, Mr Michael Lowry, to the satisfaction of the Moriarty tribunal.

The tribunal revealed yesterday it is investigating four payments involving Mr O'Brien as part of its inquiries into payments to Mr Lowry, and decisions of the former minister which may be connected to those payments.

The decision in 1995 to grant a mobile phone licence to a consortium headed by Mr O'Brien set him on the road to multimillionaire status. The process was overseen by Mr Lowry, the then minister for transport, energy and communications.

In a brief statement Mr O'Brien said he had co-operated with the tribunal and had indicated his willingness to give evidence. It is expected Mr O'Brien will be called next week or the week afterwards.

In a reference understood to be to Mr O'Brien's current role in heading a consortium seeking to buy Eircom, Mr Justice Moriarty said yesterday's revelations came at a "delicate" time in the commercial world. He said it would be wrong for anyone to come to any conclusions before all the evidence was heard.

During a lengthy opening statement, counsel for the tribunal Mr John Coughlan SC gave details of transactions which occurred between 1995 and 1999 and involve hundreds of thousands of pounds.

He revealed that £147,000 sterling which was given to Mr Lowry in late 1996 by the late Mr David Austin, a businessman with the Jefferson Smurfit group and a senior Fine Gael fund-raiser, had come originally from Mr O'Brien. The money came from the sale of a property in Spain by Mr Austin to Mr O'Brien.

Further details were heard about a donation of $50,000 from Telenor, a Norwegian company which formed part of Mr O'Brien's 1995 consortium, to Fine Gael. In March, Mr O'Brien denied arranging the payment, but a Telenor executive, Mr Arve Johansen, will say Mr O'Brien requested that his company make the payment at a meeting in Oslo.

Other evidence is to be heard indicating direct involvement by Mr O'Brien in the payment. Mr Lowry has said he has no knowledge of the donation.

The tribunal also revealed links between Mr O'Brien and two property deals in England involving Mr Lowry. The properties were bought in 1998 and 1999 and were in part purchased using £300,000 sterling which came from a London account belonging to Mr O'Brien.

In all, approximately £800,000 sterling seems to have been involved in the deals, which occurred after the establishment of the Moriarty tribunal. The tribunal only discovered the deals in recent weeks.

An associate of Mr O'Brien's, Mr Aidan Phelan, said the £300,000 sterling came from Mr O'Brien's account because it was owed to him by Mr O'Brien. Mr O'Brien said he knew nothing of the property deals.

Mr Coughlan also outlined the evidence which has been heard in private from Mr Charles Haughey earlier this year. The outline contained no significant new information concerning payments discovered by the tribunal.