THE CHAIRMAN of the Moriarty tribunal has admitted to two “significant errors” in his lengthy mobile phone licence inquiry.
However, Mr Justice Michael Moriarty rejected calls yesterday from a number of parties that he declare as “dead” the line of inquiry being pursued by the tribunal, and that he immediately say important provisional findings he made in 2008 no longer stood.
Mr Justice Moriarty said he was mistaken when he said in a legal ruling in February 2008 that the attorney general had confirmed in writing that legal advice given in 1996 did not address an important issue concerning the awarding of a licence to Esat Digifone that year.
Evidence has been heard in recent days that the Attorney General’s office wrote to the tribunal on a number of occasions, stating the exact opposite. Mr Justice Moriarty did not explain how he came to make the error.
The chairman also said the tribunal was in error in not circulating at an earlier date a memo of a private meeting held by the tribunal in 2002 with officials from the Attorney General’s office.
At the meeting the officials told the tribunal’s legal team advice received from Richard Nesbitt SC in 1996 dealt with what has been called the “ownership issue” concerning the licence.
They said the advice approved the issuing of the licence and that this was the view of the attorney general at the time. Mr Nesbitt also attended the meeting and also said the advice approved the issuing of the licence.
However, when Mr Nesbitt gave evidence to the tribunal last year, it was put to him that it was the first time he had ever claimed his advice covered the ownership issue. His sworn evidence was not accepted by the tribunal.
Now, after a number of days of evidence from the officials from the Attorney General’s office which supported Mr Nesbitt’s evidence, Mr Justice Moriarty has been asked to change the provisional findings he has made on the matter.
He said it was an error not to have circulated the memo on the 2002 meeting before last week, but that he would not be addressing his provisional findings at this stage. However, he would require a high level of proof before putting such findings in his final report.
