The founder of Esat Digifone, Denis O'Brien, has launched a strong attack on the Moriarty tribunal.
The tribunal is "now effectively in a situation where the reputation of the persons involved in the tribunal is inextricably linked with the perceived success of the tribunal . ." Mr O'Brien said.
His public comments outside the tribunal process are unprecedented.
They came on the day after the chairman of the tribunal, Mr Justice Michael Moriarty, said he would be continuing with the inquiry into the 1995 mobile phone licence competition. The competition was won by Esat Digifone.
Mr O'Brien, and others, had made legal submissions to the effect that the tribunal should abandon its inquiry because a key witness, Danish consultant Michael Andersen, who worked on the competition process, was refusing to come to Dublin to give evidence.
In giving his ruling, Mr Justice Moriarty outlined a range of issues concerning the tribunal's inquiries into Mr O'Brien and Michael Lowry on which he would have to give opinions in his final report.
He noted a number of possible significant breaches of the supposedly sealed nature of the competition's assessment process.
Mr O'Brien said the tribunal had been investigating the competition since 2001, had heard from 62 witnesses over 130 days of public hearings and had cost "somewhere between €75 million and €150 million".
"Not one witness has given any evidence of any interference in the process," he said. In particular the civil servants who had assessed the bids for the licence had given no evidence of any interference.
Mr O'Brien said it was hard to see how, at this stage, any evidence of interference with the process could "all of a sudden magically appear".
He said the evidence of those involved directly in the evaluation process should be more important than those who had no direct involvement.
"However, a preference on the part of the tribunal for secondary evidence over primary evidence appears to have taken place." The only negative evidence that had been given to the tribunal was "speculative and circumstantial".
"Either the process was interfered with or it was not. All the evidence given is that it was not. That should be the end of it," Mr O'Brien said.
He also criticised the fact that there have been ongoing meetings in private between the tribunal legal team and representatives of Persona, the consortium that came second in the licence competition which has issued proceedings against the State.
"Persona have not pushed on with their action against the State but are merely awaiting a negative finding in respect of the licence process which would open the door for them to pursue what potentially could be the largest damages claim in the history of the State. No doubt the ruling yesterday [by the tribunal chairman] was greeted with considerable glee and delight by Persona," Mr O'Brien said.
