The John Bruton / Sean Donlon inquiry into the second mobile phone licence process

 

Mr Sean Donlon, Programme Manager and Advisor to the Taoiseach (and former Irish Ambassador to the United States), carried out an inquiry into the second mobile phone licence evaluation process at the behest of John Bruton following the resignation of Mr Michael Lowry in late 1996.  

 

Mr Sean Donlon told the Tribunal on Day 283 (30 March 2004) that he carried out an investigation into the second mobile phone licence process following Mr Lowry’s resignation at the behest of Mr Bruton and that he saw no evidence of any wrongdoing on the part of Micahel Lowry; or indeed on the part of anyone else.

  

“A.    That’s correct, yeah.  I mean, if it helps, I should tell you that at some point after Michael Lowry’s resignation as Minister, the then Taoiseach, John Bruton, asked me to look at the process through which the decision had been reached, and I did so at his request by reviewing the documentation, by talking to one or two officials, and by looking at the names of officials who had been involved.  Some of these people I had known.  One of them had joined the civil service — we both joined the Department of Finance on the same day in 1961. 

 

So all of these things I took into account and went back to John Bruton and said I believed that the decision, that the process was such that it could not have been subverted.”