The Moriarty tribunal has found that the state’s award of the second mobile-phone licence was illegal, and has made 60 negative findings against Denis O’Brien, the businessman who was a key figure in the successful bid by the Esat Digifone consortium.

The revelation of the findings has been made by O’Brien himself in an interview with The Sunday Times. He said preliminary findings by the tribunal effectively state that the Esat consortium was “illegally” issued with the state’s second mobile-phone licence because he had a “corrupt” relationship with Michael Lowry, the then Fine Gael minister for communications.

O’Brien has revealed that there were 60 “negative findings” among 79 issued to him by the tribunal last November. Although he would not comment on specific points, The Sunday Times understands the tribunal has found against O’Brien for making a political donation to Fine Gael, for concealing certain evidence, and for impropriety in Spanish and British property transactions in which he is allegedly linked to Lowry.

There are 29 findings outlining how the competition for the licence was improperly awarded to Esat by civil servants who, it is alleged, were “in thrall” to Lowry and facilitated the minister’s desire for O’Brien to win the licence.

The businessman, who has spent €12m on legal fees to date has vowed to fight the tribunal “street by street”, and said newspaper adverts he bought that mocked a tribunal lawyer who charged chocolates from a hotel mini-bar to the state were part of his plan.

“I will confront them on this and the ads are just one part of it,” he said. “I am going to fight them at every turn along the way. This is street-to-street now. There are 60 findings and they are all wrong and I know how they are wrong.”

On the night O’Brien received the preliminary findings he told a friend he was in shock. “They’ve damned us all,” he said. “They’ve damned the licence, they’ve destroyed the civil service, they’ve destroyed Lowry and they’ve destroyed me.”

O’Brien accused the state of not grasping the seriousness of the findings. “We are the only ones that have taken up the fight on this, other than IIU [Dermot Desmond’s company],” he said. “We’ve had to take the fight to the tribunal otherwise the government will be faced with a massive claim for damages.The fundamental thing is whether the licence was legally issued.Provisional findings say it was illegal.”

O’Brien said there was nothing wrong with the licence competition except for “Mickey Mouse” stuff. “If you take any licence competition, will everything be perfect?” he said. “There are bound to be some human errors but not serious things.”

The businessman believes the tribunal is “out to get a scalp” in order to justify its costs, which are expected to reach 100m.
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O’Brien also alleged that Bertie Ahern, the former taoiseach, made a “political decision” in 2002 to “keep the Moriarty Tribunal going” to embarrass Fine Gael, though he did not substantiate this claim.

Recent public hearings demonstrate the tribunal is determined to find against him, O’Brien claimed, and he does not believe Moriarty will alter his findings. However he says he has a strategy to combat this. “I obviously don’t want to say what I’m going to do, but I have a plan,” he said.

We truly are a nation of gobshites. I still remember the ovation DOB got on the Late Late the weekend after he'd sold on ESAT for megabucks. Is there a place on earth that better incubates stupidity?

We truly are a nation of gobshites. I still remember the ovation DOB got on the Late Late the weekend after he'd sold on ESAT for megabucks. Is there a place on earth that better incubates stupidity?

We truly are a nation of gobshites. I still remember the ovation DOB got on the Late Late the weekend after he'd sold on ESAT for megabucks. Is there a place on earth that better incubates stupidity?

A dangerous precedent in smear campaigning is being set here by DOB.

Getting his retaliations in first against the legal team in a bid to deflect from the "alleged" crooked tendering process.

He'll be fine with his billions in tax exile, what about the rest of us plebs who will be left to pay the bill?

You ba3tard, it has taken me years to get over the trauma of not buying in the Esat digifone shares when they went public, knowing they would soar and make me a hell of a lot richer. Instead I had to work the last 9 years since BritishTelecom Wireless (later O2) bought out the shareholders for a massively inflated price.
Right, looks like I'll have to make an appointment with my shrink again on Monday

OT, but this is weird. When I read your post I could of swore I had read it before, word for word. Deja vú.

The Tribunals are star chambers and not proper courts. If we're a laughing stock it's because we pay billions to barristers to come up with something that has no legal validity.