The Minister for Public Enterprise, Mary O'Rourke TD, said today she was not in a position to comment regarding the sale of Cablelink Ltd because the matter was the subject of court proceedings. The Minister said the matter was expected to come before the courts tomorrow and any comment at this point would be improper and deemed in breach of judicial procedures. The minister’s statement follows comments by Fine Gael's Public Enterprise spokesman, Ivan Yates, has said he will be demanding a full statement from the Minister, Mary O'Rourke, on the controversy over the sale of the company.
At a special High Court hearing last night one of the bidders, ESAT Telecom, won a temporary injunction preventing the sale going ahead. ESAT claimed the consultants overseeing the deal should have ruled out an offer from a rival firm, NTL, which did not name a price but offered to pay 15 per cent more than the highest bidder. Cablelink is part-owned by Telecom Eireann and RTE but as both are still public bodies, the Minister is ultimately, in effect, the vendor. In a statement, RTE and Telecom Eireann said they considered the legal challenge to be without foundation and said they would resist it vigorously.
In the Dáil this morning, Fine Gael's deputy leader Nora Owen failed to get an immediate Dáil debate on the Cablelink sale. She called for the suspension of the Cablelink sale as there were allegations that a company had attempted a price fixing arrangement and another allegation that an invalid bid might have been accepted for the company. She was turned down for a debate by the Ceann Comhairle. The Minister for the Marine, Dr Michael Woods, who was standing in for the Taoiseach during the Order of Business, said he could not comment as the matter was before the High Court, which might give a ruling on the sale of Cablelink tomorrow.
