The Moriarty Tribunal will sit this morning to make orders for the production of documents concerning Esat Digifone. It is understood, however, that the tribunal will first have to decide whether - given the sensitive nature of the issues involved - the sitting should take place in public.

The tribunal had not been expected to resume public sittings until the new year, when it would look further into the circumstances surrounding the awarding of a mobile phone licence to Esat Digifone in 1995. Esat Digifone was set up by Mr Denis O'Brien but was sold last year, along with its parent, to British Telecom for £1.9 billion (€2.4 billion). Mr O'Brien made £231 million from the sale of his shareholding

The tribunal has already looked at a payment of $50,000 (€55,316) from the members of the wining consortium to Fine Gael, who were in power at the time. Mr Michael Lowry, who was Fine Gael minister for communications at the time, is the subject of the Tribunal, along with former Taoiseach Mr Charles Haughey.

The financier Mr Dermot Desmond and his company International Investment and Underwriting (IIU) are expected to figure in the next stage of the tribunal's inquiries. IIU was an investor in Digifone and Mr Desmond has already told the tribunal he made more than £100 million out of the 20 per cent stake it held in the company from August 1995, some months before the licence being warded.

The financier has also told the tribunal he was certain that the awarding of the licence could not have been influenced by Mr Lowry in any way. Among other allegations being examined by the tribunal is one that Mr O'Brien paid Mr Lowry £100,000.