Moriarty Tribunal: The level of security under which the 1995 mobile-phone licence competition operated acted as an impediment to the work of the assessment team, the tribunal was told.
Ms Maev Ni Lochláinn, who was a member of the assessment team, told Mr Eoin McGonigal SC, for Mr Denis O'Brien, that there was a high degree of security and confidentiality surrounding the draft final reports and other documents produced by the team.
She said that the documents were treated on the basis that they would not be taken out of the Department of Transport, Energy and Communications or out of the office in the Department where they were stored.
She agreed that this meant people who missed a particular meeting couldn't "catch up" on what had occurred until the following meeting.
She also agreed it meant that people could not take documents away from a meeting for further consideration.
Each time a new meeting took place conversations had to be regenerated without the people involved having the benefit of having read the documents in the meantime.
She said the team relied on and was dependent on the Danish consultants, Andersen Management International, to do a lot of the work and on documents the consultants produced and the accuracy of those documents.
If there were errors in those documents then the consultants were the best people to explain those matters.
The tribunal has been told that the consultants are unlikely to attend to give evidence.
Ms Ni Lochláinn agreed that her notes from the period contained work she had done on the process and did not indicate that anyone had tried to influence her in her work in any way.
She told Mr John O'Donnell SC, for the Department, that she believed a sub-group of the team which travelled to Copenhagen in late September had been entitled to decide on what sub-weightings should be used for the criteria they were assessing.
She said it was her view that the notes of a subsequent meeting of the full team indicated that the matter had been discussed and approved.
She said she knew the people with her on the team, and there were no "shrinking violets" who would feel cowed about making any point they felt should be made.
She said the team chairman, Mr Martin Brennan, was the type of chairman who encouraged people to speak up if they thought they had spotted a problem.
Although she had been a relatively junior member of the team she would have felt no reservations about speaking out if she felt she had something to say.
In relation to a meeting on October 23rd, 1995, two days before the announcement that Esat Digifone had won the licence, Ms Ni Lochláinn said she could recall a feeling of frustration among the members of the team.
She could remember contention but it was concerning the presentation of the team's findings rather than the findings themselves. She had no feeling that the result was being pushed or driven through.
