Anyone who knew of the findings on Mr Dermot Desmond in the 1993 Glackin report would have had to subject what was being said about him in relation to Esat Digifone in May 1996 to "deep scrutiny", the tribunal heard.
The point was put by counsel for the tribunal, Mr Jerry Healy, to civil servant Mr Martin Brennan, who responded: "I think that is fair comment." Mr Brennan was a senior civil servant in the department of transport, energy and communications in 1995 when he chaired the team which selected the winner of the competition for the State's second mobile phone licence. He was also involved in the negotiations which preceded the issuing of the licence in May 1996.
The tribunal heard that an assessment was carried out on Mr Desmond's wealth in the days immediately prior to the issuing of the licence and while preparations were at the same time being made for a press conference to announce the issuing of the licence. The assessment came in the wake of Mr Desmond becoming involved in the Digifone consortium in the place of a number of banks and to allow the department decide if he had the resources to fulfil his commitments to Digifone.
Mr Healy said that, as in the case of the announcement of the winner in 1995, the assessment of Mr Desmond's wealth was carried out under pressure of time and he questioned why someone did not say the assessment could not be carried out in "two days".
Mr Brennan said it was often the case that the conclusion of a process was conducted in such a manner. He said the tribunal would have to ask Mr Donal Buggy, the civil servant who conducted the assessment, about the quality of the conclusions he came to and whether they were affected by time pressure.
Mr Healy said Mr Buggy had to rely on very little information. The information he relied on came from an associate of Mr Desmond, Mr Michael Walsh, and the accountant, Mr Pearse Farrell, of Farrell Grant Sparks.
A note on Mr Buggy's memo on the financial strengths of the members of the Digifone consortium indicated that the department secretary, Mr John Loughrey, noted Mr Buggy's findings on the morning the licence was issued.
Mr Healy said a note of a meeting with Mr Farrell, which took place two days before the licence was issued, contained a reference to an agreement between Mr Denis O'Brien's company, Communicorp, and Mr Desmond's IIU Ltd, on September 29th, 1995. He said an inquiry into the nature of this agreement might have led to the department questioning much of the information it had been given about the Digifone consortium in the months prior to the issuing of the licence. The department was not told of IIU's involvement in the consortium until April 1996.
Mr Brennan agreed that this was a "fair point" and that it might have "tempered" the way the department was dealing with the process then under way. Mr Healy said Mr Brennan could therefore understand why the tribunal was interested in where the pressure was coming from to wrap up the process. Mr Healy read out some of the findings of the Glackin report about Mr Desmond. The report was concerned with the sale of the former Johnson Mooney & O'Brien site in Ballsbridge, Dublin, to Telecom Éireann and the involvement of two companies, Chestvale Properties and Hoddle Investments. Mr Glackin found that Mr Desmond had an interest in the success or failure of the companies. Mr Brennan said he was working in Brussels and was preparing to move himself and his family back to Dublin at the time the Glackin report came out and so was not particularly aware of its contents.
Mr Glackin also found that Mr Desmond had misrepresented to certain banks the involvement of Mr Larry Goodman, Mr John Magnier and Dr Michael Smurfit in the companies, even though this was not the case.
Mr Glackin also found that Mr Desmond induced the editor of the Irish Independent to issue an apology about a story which was substantially correct. He also found that Mr Desmond misrepresented his status on the site to Dr Smurfit, the chairman of Telecom Éireann, by not telling him that he was interested in the success of Chestvale, which owned the site. He also misrepresented his involvement to the chief executive of Telecom Éireann, to whom he presented himself as an intermediary.