Moriarty Tribunal: The tribunal has "lost the plot and needs to be brought back on track", the financier Mr Dermot Desmond said yesterday.
In a prepared statement at the outset of yesterday's proceedings of the tribunal, Mr Desmond was sharply critical of the way it has operated.
He said it was difficult to understand, given the evidence that has been heard in public to date, why the tribunal ever went beyond its private investigation into the awarding of a mobile-phone licence to Esat Digifone.
"There would appear to exist a belief in wild conspiracy theories in the absence of any evidence of interference by Michael Lowry in the evaluation process or evidence of a breakdown in the procedures dictated by the civil servants."
Mr Desmond said the evidence of the civil servants involved in assessing the bids for the licence had consistently been that the process had not been "punctured".
"No allegation has been made against me in relation to this module of the tribunal. Yet there are days reading the transcript when you would think that I was the subject of this inquiry and not Michael Lowry."
He said that, for the record, he had never had any dealings with Mr Lowry apart from meeting him on "the rare social occasion".
He said that under the protection of privilege the tribunal had made public statements and inferences about individuals, and suggestions were put to witnesses that were damaging to reputations. "Due to the length of time taken by the tribunal to conduct its inquiry, these slurs are left out there for years until the individual concerned is called and then has an opportunity to defend his or her reputation."
"The tribunal has exhausted enormous time and resources and taken over two years to deal with the licence alone. The evaluation of the applications for the licence took less than three months. I believe the tribunal has lost the plot and needs to be brought back on track and back within its terms of reference."
Mr Desmond said the tribunal had, in essence, indicated that it wished to investigate whether his involvement in Digifone was concealed and that he had, thereby, avoided the evaluation process. "Even if there were any substance to this, which there is not, its relevance to the terms of reference of this tribunal remains a mystery to me."
"I wish to state clearly and emphatically that there was no avoidance of evaluation on my part or on the part of [his company] IIU, whether intended or otherwise. There was nothing covert. On the contrary I wished that my involvement through IIU be disclosed to the adjudication team in the department. I wanted to be certain that when small-minded people knew I was involved and questioned this, everything would have been done perfectly."
He said the line of questioning pursued by counsel for the tribunal with many witnesses had sought to suggest there was something "less than kosher" about IIU's involvement and that it somehow represented a weakening of the position of the consortium.
This was to misunderstand the nature of the agreements concluded between IIU and the consortium.
He said aspects of the tribunal's work had demonstrated "a complete lack of understanding of how corporate finance works". He believed the tribunal did not understand underwriting or investment, what happens in the marketplace, risk-taking or commercial deadlines.
He said the tribunal had permitted numerous "derogatory remarks" to be made about his investment companies and him.
"I think that the time has come for these hard truths to be said."
He sought an undertaking from the chairman, Mr Justice Moriarty, that he would be the "sole author of his report rather than a reviewer of a report prepared by his legal team".
The chairman did not respond.
