Businessman Mr Denis O'Brien has told the Moriarty tribunal he believed the bid by Esat Telecom for the State's second GSM mobile phone licence was so comprehensive that no other bidder could have matched it.
Mr O'Brien, whose Esat Digifone consortium was successful in the licence bid in 1995, has been in the witness box at Dublin Castle today, where he was taken through a statement he delivered to the tribunal last night.
He said his consortium's preparations for the licence bid were reflected in the fact that it was "extraordinarily successful" in rolling out the new network and obtained 40 per cent of the mobile market in a short time.
Mr O'Brien said the former Minister for Communications, Mr Michael Lowry, "did not involve himself in the process or interfere with" decisions in relating to the granting of the GSM licence.
"The award of the second mobile phone licence, although officially a decision of Minister Lowry, was in fact a decision that resulted from a very detailed public competition that was supervised and adjudicated upon by a project team and external consultants who were wholly independent of Minister Lowry," the statement said.
Mr O'Brien said it concerned him deeply that the "standard dealings and manoeuvrings" that were an essential part of business had been elevated by the tribunal into the realm of "public interest" matters.
He was concerned that the "traditional, conservative professions" would have difficulty in understanding the "perfectly normal" workings of business, particularly in relation to matters such as the awarding of the second mobile phone licence.
The statement also says Mr O'Brien wanted to "emphasise publicly", that no allegations were being made against him or against any of the companies with which he is associated.
He said that unfortunately certain sections of the media had represented the tribunal as being an inquiry into him and into his former business dealings.
In addition, Mr O'Brien said he wanted to "knock on the head the trite and uneducated contention" that Esat Digifone became a €2.3 billion company by simply purchasing a second mobile phone licence for £15 million.
Mr O'Brien's statement goes into great detail on Esat's bid for the GSM licence.
At one point, the consortium was so conscious of aspects of its bid being leaked to its competitors, it leased an office in Dublin city centre, employed 24-hour security and blacked out all the windows. The office was also swept on a regular basis for "listening devices".
Aspects of Mr O'Brien's statement have been referred to the Attorney General and to companies, including the former Telecom Éireann, named in it, lawyers for the tribunal said.