The former taoiseach Mr John Bruton, said he approved the early announcement of the result of the 1995 mobile phone licence competition after being told the assessors had come up with a clear result.
The tribunal heard that on October 25th, 1995, Mr Bruton was contacted by Mr Michael Lowry, the then minister for transport, energy and communications, who said he wanted to meet Mr Bruton and the other party leaders from the Rainbow Coalition.
Mr Bruton told Mr John Coughlan SC, for the tribunal, that he had a 4 p.m. estimates meeting scheduled with the then minister for finance Mr Ruairí Quinn, the then Tánaiste Mr Dick Spring, and the then minister for social welfare Mr Proinsias de Rossa.
He said he met Mr Lowry and was told the team assessing the mobile phone licence bid had come to a decision as to the winner of the competition. Mr Lowry said he wanted access to the party leaders to get clearance to announce the winner.
Mr Bruton said he presumed he was told that Mr Lowry's advisers had said it would be best to make an early announcement of the decision. Mr Bruton took a few notes of the meeting with Mr Lowry.
He said he had a huge number of "green books" wherein he took notes during the 10 years of his leadership of Fine Gael. He said he took these notes more for something to do with his hands than to refer to later.
One note from his meeting with Mr Lowry stated that Mr Albert Reynolds had promised the mobile phone licence to Motorola. Motorola was part of the Persona consortium, which came second. Mr Bruton said this was just a passing remark, more gossip than politics.
The making of the announcement was approved by the party leaders and Mr Lowry subsequently held a press conference announcing that Esat Digifone was the winner.