A former assistant secretary at the Department of Transport, Energy and Communications told the tribunal he had no doubt as to the integrity of the 1995 mobile phone licence competition or the integrity of the people involved.
Mr Seán Fitzgerald said he believed the evaluation of the bids received was conducted without any external interference and carried out fairly.
He told Mr Eoin McGonigal SC, for Mr Denis O'Brien, he believed it would have been impossible for any one person in the process to have brought about a particular result.
The process was structured so that some people belonged to sub-committees which assessed different aspects of the bids, while other members of the group belonged to no committee but had to satisfy themselves as to the results of the sub-committees.
The people were people of good judgment, "who would have spotted any attempt to message the results".
Mr Fitzgerald said that in the wake of the announcement that Esat Digifone had won there was some media comment which he thought unfair. He said he stood over the unprecedented idea to hold a press conference where the civil servants involved could answer questions from the media. He still thought it was a good idea, given the circumstances.
Mr Fitzgerald said he shared the amazement of the chairman that no one in the Department involved in the 1995 competition, or the subsequent negotiations with Esat Digifone, had noticed the content of an article published in The Irish Times on February 28th, 1996.
The article contained detailed information to do with the Digifone consortium which the Department did not become aware of until April 17th, 1996, just weeks before the actual issue of the licence. Mr Fitzgerald is to continue giving evidence today.
