The names of the members of the e-Island consortium led by Mr Denis O'Brien and Mr Leslie Buckley read like a who's who of the former board of Esat Telecom.

Apart from Mr O'Brien and Mr Buckley, the other members are Mr Paul Connolly, Mr Massimo Prelz Oltramonti, Ms Lucy Gaffney, Mr Padraig O hUiginn and Mr Denis O'Brien Snr. Mr Connolly joined Esat Telecom in 1996 as the company prepared to float on the Nasdaq stock market in the US. Mr Connolly was and remains a key adviser to Mr O'Brien. He established his own corporate finance consultancy company in 1991. Previous to this, Mr Connolly was the financial controller for Hibernia Meats International Ltd.

From 1981 to 1987, he worked for accountants KPMG. His shares and options in Esat following its sale to British Telecom were valued at £7.2 million.

Mr Prelz Oltramonti was also on the Esat board. He joined Advent International, a European venture capital group, in 1991 and has been a managing director of the company since 1994. Mr Prelz Oltramonti, who has a degree in commerce from the University of Geneva and an MBA from the Wharton School of Business, is a director of Esaote Biomedica SpA and of EDAP-TMS S.A.

Ms Gaffney was until recently a director of Esat as well as the company's chief operating officer. Prior to that, she was managing director of Esat Clear, Esat's residential division. She had her own marketing consultancy before joining Esat in November 1997 and owns shares and options in the company worth £3.6 million. Recently, Ms Gaffney was appointed to First Active's board of directors.

Mr O hUiginn, who left the Esat board last month, had been a director of the company since 1996. He is believed to have made £3.5 million from the sale of Esat to BT earlier this year. A former secretary-general of the Department of the Taoiseach and chairman of the National Economic and Social Committee, he is currently a director of Bord Failte.

Mr O hUiginn is also involved with Mr O'Brien and Mr Buckley in ePower, which aims to be a significant player in the deregulated utilities market.

Mr O'Brien's father, Mr Denis O'Brien Snr, who also resigned from Esat last month, was a senior founding director of the company. He is also the founder and owner of PlusVital (Ireland) Ltd, formerly Irish Thorougbred Products Ltd. Mr O'Brien Snr made £3.5 million from the sale of Esat to BT.