It was Denis Naughten's ambiguity about his meetings with the lead bidder for the National Broadband Plan, among other concerns, that spooked Leo Varadkar.
Between Wednesday night and Thursday morning, the Taoiseach and his now former minister for communications spoke about Naughten’s contacts with David McCourt on three occasions.
The two men’s accounts varied on when Naughten divulged that he had met McCourt privately on at least four occasions.
These were in addition to previously publicised encounters, including a dinner in New York in July, which the Department of Communications said was primarily social, although officials present discussed the bid with McCourt.
Speaking yesterday, Varadkar said that Naughten changed “his story on a number of occasions”, while sources said the Roscommon TD, while confirming a number of private meetings with McCourt, could not be certain of the time or venue of some of them.
One was held at McCourt's house in Co Clare in September 2017, and was organised by Pat Breen, the Fine Gael TD for the county and a Minister of State. There were a further three private encounters – which Naughten claims he informed Varadkar of on Wednesday night, but which the Taoiseach insists he was made aware of only on Thursday morning – but little detail about them.
Numerous sources said Naughten could not recollect the details of the extra meetings, aside from the fact that one was likely to have been drinks in Dublin's Merrion Hotel with McCourt.
McCourt stays in the Merrion, just across the road from Government Buildings, and is known to have meetings there. Another meeting with Naughten was possibly in the hotel too, said a source. Fewer details were available about the fourth meeting.
“It was the vagueness of it that had people spooked,” said one Government source of Naughten’s accounts to Varadkar. “He didn’t go into the detail of it.”
Another well-placed source said of Naughten’s exchanges with Varadkar: “He didn’t tell him dates.”
A Government figure summarised Varadkar’s concerns as the “changes of story, the new meetings, [and] dinners and the issue of protocol”.
“It was more a question of whether continuing was tenable,” it was added.
Protocols
Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin and other Opposition figures had raised the issue of protocol in the Dáil earlier in the week.
The strict rules and protocols around procurement strictly forbid direct canvassing of government and ministers during a tender.
Martin had claimed this is precisely what McCourt was doing. “He was canvassing and lobbying, and canvassing disqualifies. Ministers should be completely at arms’ length from the tendering process.”
Eamon Ryan, the Green Party leader who served as minister for communications in the Fianna Fáil-Green Party government between 2007 and 2011, said his experience was that the department was usually "paranoid" because of the shadow of the 1996 awarding of the second mobile phone licence to Denis O'Brien's Esat Digifone. The Moriarty Tribunal later found the then minister Michael Lowry assisted O'Brien in his bid.
“The department really did try to protect you,” Ryan said. “The instinct of the minister is always gung ho and do as much as you can and make things happen.”
At times, said Ryan, you could feel as officials were being restrictive but you would then be glad of their ability to look around corners.
“They were paranoid of any kind of impropriety in a process and would always steer you away from meeting people on your own or at any sensitive time in a tendering process. I am surprised they let that dinner go ahead in New York.”
He also said it would be “interesting to know” if the department knew about the other private meetings between McCourt and Naughten, “because all sorts of alarm bells were going off”.
A department spokesman could not provide any further details last night. Given Naughten’s inability to lay out specifics to Varadkar, doing so may be a difficult task.
Lack of judgment
The revelation of the additional four meetings between McCourt and Naughten made a ministerial resignation inevitable. Most in Leinster House were baffled by Naughten's appalling lack of judgment, perhaps best illustrated by the organisation of a lunch for McCourt's family in Leinster House last April.
This took place on the same day the minister was battling controversy over contacts he had with a lobbyist for Independent News and Media.
One rationale voiced by those in both Opposition and Government was that an under-pressure Naughten was desperate for the National Broadband Plan to go ahead. McCourt’s firm Granahan McCourt was the only bidder left, after Eir and Siro withdrew their bids. In July, SSE exited the lead in the bidding consortium, which was then led by Granahan McCourt.
“I don’t think Denis is dodgy, no, not for the life of me,” said a senior Opposition TD. “He had a political demand he was trying to meet, and that was to sign a contract. When it was all falling apart, he obviously decided he had to make it happen.”
Another source said McCourt “could have walked when SSE walked, and that’s the reality of it”, adding: “That was genuinely the motive.”
The Government has now asked for a report on whether the process has been compromised, amid claims from the Opposition that Naughten’s contacts with McCourt could have caused irreparable damage.
The question Ministers and officials now have to grapple with is whether, in his desperation to save the National Broadband Plan, Naughten may have sunk it.
