THE Minister for Communications is seeking legal advice on whether it is proper or appropriate to provide information on the assessment of the applications for the State's mobile phone licence to the unsuccessful consortiums.

Speaking in the Dail yesterday in response to a question from Fianna Fail's Mr Ball O'Keeffe, Mr Lowry said that, given undertakings in relation to the confidentiality of the bids for the licence, it was necessary to clarify whether his Department could respond to such requests.

Mr Lowry has declined to give details of the reasons why Esat Digifone won the licence over the other five consortiums, despite calls from some of them.

The Minister confirmed yesterday that the US embassy had also been in contact with his Department after the licence was awarded, seeking disclosure of the reasons why other consortiums had been unsuccessful.

"This approach was based purely on the value of such information to the companies concerned for their own business reasons" Mr Lowry said.

Four of the six consortiums included US interests.