The statutory instrument that enabled CI╔ to operate a telecoms network on its railway for Esat Group will be scrutinised this week by the rail signalling inquiry, which reopens today after a month-long suspension.
A subcommittee of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Public Enterprise and Transport was set up to find out why the cost of a new signalling system spiralled to more than £50 million despite a projected cost of £14 million.
The construction of the Esat system along the railway was linked to that overrun. Subcommittee members are expected to continue their investigations into the statutory instrument signed in April 1998 by the Minister for Public Enterprise, Ms O'Rourke.
The inquiry is also expected to question executives from Esat and its mobile phone subsidiary Digifone about the value of the network on the railway.
Although CI╔ has claimed it stands to gain more than £100 million in licence revenues from the arrangement over 20 years, the inquiry is expected to ask if a better deal was possible.
Chaired by Mr Seβn Doherty TD, its hearings were suspended when the family of the former CI╔ chief executive, the late Mr Michael McDonnell, challenged the inquiry's procedures. A Supreme Court judgment last week cleared the way for today's resumption, although a judicial review is pending.
It is expected that Ms O'Rourke and her two predecessors at the Department - Mr Michael Lowry and Mr Alan Dukes - will be called next Monday, the final day of formal sessions. Cross-examination by counsel acting for inquiry witnesses will follow.
Esat could not use the network without the statutory instrument, which was necessary to enable CI╔ to "light up" the network along the railway. According to Mr Doherty's opening statement on July 18th, CI╔'s application for the instrument was supported by a briefing note in February 1998 from its then head of programmes and projects, Dr Ray Bryne.
In his evidence Dr Byrne claimed the Esat deal was a good one for CI╔. He is expected to be called again this week.
His note stated that Esat was the "only operator" interested in committing to a network "compatible" with the signalling system. The note added that CI╔'s specialist telecoms advisers had "endorsed the deal as a very good one for CI╔".
Mr Doherty said in July the note was prepared "many months" after cable-laying had commenced.
He said: "Dr Byrne's analysis focuses exclusively on the income streams that he anticipated might accrue from the Esat deal. What his analysis did not address was the potential costs that might arise from entering into such a deal."
Earlier sessions heard that a retired secretary general of the Department of An Taoiseach, Mr Padraig ╙ hUiginn, had telephoned the office of the Attorney General to inquire about the progress of the instrument. Mr O hUiginn, who was acting as director of Esat at the time, said he did no more than a TD would do for a constituent.
