Oireachtas

Lowry says Ministers had no phone licencd role

THERE was no Ministerial interference with the evaluation process in the granting of the second mobile phone licence to Esat …

By DERMOT KELLY and MICHAEL O'REGAN
Wed May 01 1996 - 01:00

THERE was no Ministerial interference with the evaluation process in the granting of the second mobile phone licence to Esat Digifone, the Minister for Transport, Energy and Communications said.

"I want to make it quite clear that the project team or the consultants were not influenced by any non telecommunications factors. The consultants are specialists in advising in competitions of this kind, with a high reputation to protect," Mr Lowry added.

The ownership of the company was a matter for Esat Digifone, and it would make a full disclosure on how it had put its funding in place and who the stake holders were before the licence was signed, he said.

Mr Batt O'Keeffe (FF, Cork South Central) said there was press speculation that 20 per cent could be owned by people like Mr Dermot Desmond and others. The Minister said if Mr Desmond or others were in a position to fund the project, and were acceptable to the company, that was their business. "It is not my business to determine who should or should not participate in a consortium of this kind."

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He said the substance of the licence had been agreed between his Department and Esat Digifone and it was in recent days the subject of a final legal clearance. "I expect that this clearance will be forthcoming shortly. This is somewhat behind my original schedule, but I want to stress that the only reason for delay is due to the time needed to draft the highly complex document."

He said he had no problem with the announcement by the Persona consortium that it intended to lodge a complaint with the European Commission relating to the selection process.

Amid noisy exchanges, Mr Lowry claimed the Opposition, particularly Fianna Fail, was "a model of contradictions and inconsistencies". He had come into the House, he added, to put an end to speculative and misinformed discussion.

"Too many people inside and outside the House are allowing themselves to be used in a despicable campaign aimed at undermining a robust competition process and damaging business confidence.

The Fianna Fail leader said it was despicable of the Minister to twist the issue around. "It was to protect your own skin that we raised the matter," Mr Bertie Ahern added.