BUSINESSMAN BARRY Maloney has told The Irish Timesthat he considered Denis O'Brien's attendance at the recent Global Irish Economic Forum in Dublin would give the wrong perception of Ireland due to a negative finding by the Moriarty tribunal in relation to Esat Telecom against his former business associate.
That is why he wrote to the Taoiseach Enda Kenny and Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore in advance of the forum to inform them that he could no longer attend because Mr O’Brien would be there.
“I did it because our business in Ireland is very significant,” Mr Maloney said.
“We’ve invested $200 million in Ireland since we started in business 10 years ago.
“And we employ, depending which way you cut the numbers, probably 1,300-1,400 people in what we regard as leading-edge technology companies.
“Ireland and the way it is perceived is important to us, it’s as simple as that. “We’ve got investors as well and we’ve got to account where we invest and why we like any country.”
Balderton Capital, of which Mr Maloney is one of four partners, has about $2 billion worth of assets under management globally in four funds.
These are the first public comments on the matter made by Mr Maloney and formed part of a wide-ranging interview published in Business This Week.
Mr Maloney did participate in the first staging of the summit for Irish diaspora in Farmleigh two years ago – a meeting that was also attended by Mr O’Brien.
But he said the circumstances were very different then.
“By that stage the [Moriarty] report wasn’t out. It was a personal decision . I didn’t feel right about it and I decided that the best thing to do was just to avoid it.”
In March, the Moriarty tribunal found that the former minister for communications, Michael Lowry, “secured the winning” of the 1995 mobile phone licence competition for Denis O’Brien’s Esat Digifone. Mr Maloney gave evidence to the Moriarty tribunal that in or around September or October 1996 he had a discussion with Mr O’Brien concerning payments that Mr Maloney, as chief executive of Esat Digifone, was obliged to sanction.
In his interview with The Irish Times, Mr Maloney declined to comment on why he had waited a year before informing the board of Esat of this conversation with Mr O'Brien.
“I’ve given my evidence and I’m not going to go through another tribunal with Denis,” he said.
Mr Maloney said he has not spoken to Mr O’Brien in 11 years. The pair were previously close friends and business colleagues.
Mr Maloney made a reported €44 million windfall from the subsequent sale of Esat to British Telecom.
He said he would have no problem paying some form of wealth tax here to aid a recovery in the exchequer finances.
