Lowry and O'Brien meeting revealed at Tribunal

The Moriarty Tribunal has heard that Michael Lowry and Denis O'Brien met each other in a Dublin pub just five days after Mr O'Brien's consortium had made their formal oral presentation in the competition for the mobile phone licence.

The Minister, as Mr Lowry was then, had been advised by his Department officials not to meet bidders.

Both Mr Lowry and Mr O'Brien say the licence application was not discussed. However another witness has alleged that Mr O'Brien told him Michael Lowry made a suggestion at this meeting regarding the make-up of the Esat Digifone consortium.

Per Simmonson of the Norwegian Company Telenor said Denis O'Brien told him that Michael Lowry had suggested that Dermot Desmond's company IIU should be part of the consortium.

In subsequent days IIU agreed to play a major and significant role in the consortium.

Earlier the Tribunal heard that Denis O'Brien appeared to have given misleading information regarding his consortium's finances to the team assessing bids for the second mobile phone licence.

At a formal presentation of their bid in September of 1995 Denis O'Brien told assessors that his consortium had been guaranteed a loan worth £30m from the financial group Advent.

He said this was an 'irrevocable commitment'.

However, the Tribunal has presented documents which show that Advent had made no such commitment and that Denis O'Brien was aware of that.

The Tribunal has said it is 'unclear' how Denis O'Brien and other members of his presentation team came to make such statements.

Lowry conversation with bidder

The Tribunal also revealed more details of alleged conversations that took place between the then Minister Michael Lowry and another bidder, Tony O'Reilly of the Independent Newspaper Group.

Dr O'Reilly says he met Michael Lowry in September 1995. He says Mr Lowry said to him 'your fellas did not do too well yesterday'.

Dr O'Reilly said the Minister was referring to a presentation made in relation to the competition for the second mobile phone licence by a consortuim Dr O'Reilly was involved in.

Rules governing the competition excluded the Minister from having any knowledge of how the applications were being evaluated.

The Tribunal says it believes the process may not have remained intact and may have been compromised.

Michael Lowry denies ever making this comment to Dr O'Reilly. He has stated again that he had no direct involvement or knowledge of the competition.