The former Chief Executive of Esat Digifone has spent his first day in the witness box at the Moriarty Tribunal. As expected, Barry Maloney contradicted what Denis O'Brien told the Tribunal about a conversation the two men had in late 1996. This conversation gave Mr Maloney the impression that money had been given to Michael Lowry. Mr Maloney also gave a very different account of subsequent events.
Denis O'Brien said that it was during a Sunday jog that he told Barry Maloney that he had given payments of £100,000 to two unidentified people. Mr O'Brien said that he never mentioned Michael Lowry. Barry Maloney disagreed. The two men met in an office, he said, and Denis O'Brien told him that he had given £100,000 to Michael Lowry. That is the first disagreement and there are a lot more, he said.
Barry Maloney said that he brought the matter to the attention of the board of Esat Telecom a year later, not because he wanted to cause trouble and stop that company's flotation, as Denis O'Brien maintains, but because as Chief Executive of Esat Digifone, he was very concerned.
Mr Maloney insisted that Denis O'Brien told him around this time that the payment had never actually been made, because it had gotten stuck with an intermediary, a middleman. Denis O'Brien said that there never was any middleman.
