Mr Denis O'Brien asked an Esat Digifone director to write to Mr Arve Johansen of Telenor warning him against contacting Fine Gael about a $50,000 donation, the Moriarty Tribunal has heard.
The tribunal also heard that Mr O'Brien asked Mr Johansen to make the payment to Fine Gael on behalf of Esat Digifone because he had made several donations in the past which had caused a "fuss in the media".
Mr Johansen was certain that letters to him from Mr Michael Walsh of IIU, a director of Esat Digifone, were at the behest of Mr O'Brien. The letters warned Mr Johansen that he would be held responsible if the Esat Digifone licence was damaged by investigations Telenor was conducting with Fine Gael into the payment of the donation. Mr Walsh's letters stated he was not aware of the donation.
"The words in the letter could never have been said by Denis O'Brien . . . referring to not having the knowledge of the donation," Mr Johansen said.
The tribunal also heard from Mr Johansen that Mr O'Brien was annoyed at the media treatment of previous donations he made, and that the payment of $50,000 to Fine Gael should be "invisible in Ireland".
"He wanted to keep it out of sight of the Irish press," Mr Johansen said. He said the sequence of events by which the money was paid into an offshore account and then reimbursed to Telenor was strange. "A lot of firms, a lot of private persons in Ireland, both had onshore and offshore accounts, so in my mind I said `well, this is another one'," he said.
But Mr Johansen denied that because it was "invisible in Ireland" the payment was open to being misconstrued.
"Generally he had also given donations to other parties and it always created a fuss regardless," he said.
Mr Johansen said after the licence was awarded he became aware that consultants had been hired for lobbying purposes.
Mr Johansen also defended the awarding of the second mobile phone licence to Esat Digifone. "We put together a very good bid. We had a very young and enthusiastic team going. We had a more creative approach to the services, to the quality of the services, the coverage, the speed of roll-out, the packages and the prices than anyone else.
"We were by far well ahead of the number two in the competition," he said.