Rabbitte says Moriarty report should go to Director of Public Prosecutions

THE MORIARTY report should be sent to the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), Minister for Communications Pat Rabbitte has said.

He also defended the rainbow coalition government in place at the time of the controversial allocation of the second mobile phone licence. Mr Rabbitte said none of the other ministers in cabinet had any knowledge about the process of awarding the licence, other than that it was a “best-practice process” which was “hermetically sealed”.

Mr Rabbitte, who was a so-called “super junior” minister at the time, said the “project team and consultants followed best practice, as far as we were aware”. He said “the officials involved in the process had no knowledge at any time of any relationship between the then minister” and Esat Digifone boss Denis O’Brien.

He had not had time yet to read the full report but his department was reviewing it and he would consult the Attorney General. He said the review would likely lead to changes in how licensing decisions were made.

The Minister acknowledged the report “contains findings of the utmost gravity in relation to the then minister” Michael Lowry, who “displayed an appreciable interest in the substantive process, had irregular interactions with interested parties at its most sensitive stages, sought and received substantive information on emerging trends”, brought an “untimely guillotine down on the work of the project group and proceeded to bypass consideration by his Cabinet colleagues”.

Replying to a series of special-notice questions in the Dáil, Mr Rabbitte agreed with Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin who asked if the report would be submitted to the DPP.

The Minister said from what he had read “I think it should be referred to the DPP” and “that’s not a difficulty”.

Mr Martin said the link between Fine Gael fundraising donations and the awarding of the licence was “extremely disturbing” and that “something stinks here to the highest heaven”.

He highlighted the pattern of fundraising and the “degree to which Denis O’Brien in particular, according to the report, deliberately and conspicuously raised his profile within Fine Gael”.

He noted that Fine Gael cleared all its debts between 1994 and 1995 in government.

Mr Rabbitte said: “I agree with you that it does raise serious issues about the traditional connection between politics and business.” But, he added, “the words ‘pot’ and ‘kettle’ occur. I hear you so concerned about what has happened and when you say that Fine Gael delayed legislation to address this issue of corporate donations it strikes me that’s exactly what you did with former deputy John Gormley and the Green Party.”

Socialist Party TD Joe Higgins called for the Criminal Assets Bureau to seek to recover the £250 million (€317.5 million) in personal profit Mr O’Brien made on the licence. He said the report showed “shocking corporate and political corruption involving a government minister and a leading businessman”.

Sinn Féin’s Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin said it was only after 14 years and €150 million in taxpayers’ money that “we are only now having the full truth properly exposed”.