Confusion surrounds the nature of representations made to the Minister for Defence, Mr Smith, by the US Ambassador, Mr Richard Egan, in connection with a €100 million helicopter deal.
US firm Sikorsky was granted the contract earlier this year, following a second tendering process by the Department of Defence and after it had dropped its price by about 27 per cent.
Eurocopter, one of the three unsuccessful bidders, sought a judicial review of the decision in the High Court last week and the discovery of documents. The case returns to court on April 15th.
Initially, a spokesman for the Department confirmed the US ambassador had handed over a revised bid on behalf of Sikorsky to the Minister during the course of a courtesy call on October 11th. Mr Smith had accepted the document, he said, but it had not been taken into account by the Department because the closing date for tenders had passed.
Last evening, however, following a call from the US embassy and further consultations with Mr Smith, the spokesman said the ambassador had not handed over a copy of the revised Sikorsky contract. He understood the Minister had "taken papers" from the ambassador at that meeting, but they had not been in relation to Sikorsky.
The meeting on October 11th involved the Minister, the ambassador and two officials from the US embassy. No official from the Department of Defence attended.
On October 24th, 2001, the ambassador wrote to the Minister in the following terms: "I want to thank you again for our enjoyable meeting on October 11. I look forward to continuing our positive exchanges in the future. During our discussion, I left you Sikorsky's latest proposal which included a revised bid approximately 27 per cent lower in price than their initial offer. We understand that, to date, the Department of Defence has not yet responded to this Sikorsky proposal, although it appears quite advantageous in costs terms to other bids."
Last night, the US embassy said all ambassadors and embassies were charged by their governments with promoting their countries' exports and commercial interests. The ambassador had confirmed to the Minister that a revised bid had been submitted by Sikorsky in late September. The ambassador, the statement went on, "had no specific knowledge of competing bids; his views on the relative prices of bids were based exclusively on public information from previous European helicopter competitions".
Mr Smith had established an expert group within his Department to
deal with the tender process. That expert group is understood to have favoured the Eurocopter bid but, on December 6th, when the expiry date on prices for all tenders had elapsed, Mr Smith decided on a new tendering process and invited the four companies concerned to make their "best offer".
Sikorsky won the contract with a mixture of the lowest bid and a commitment to provide service and repair contracts worth €159 million, designed to underpin jobs at troubled FLS Aerospace, at Dublin Airport.
The Fine Gael spokesman on justice and defence, Mr Alan Shatter, yesterday challenged the Minister to say whether appropriate processes and and procedures had been followed in relation to the State contract.
Last week, Mr Smith told the Dáil there was no question of the Sikorsky contract being withdrawn. He had no intention of going back to the marketplace unless he was forced to do so by the courts, he said.