What did Alan Dukes say in evidence?

Alan Dukes was elected to Dail Eireann in 1981 as TD for Kildare South and remained a Member until May, 2002. During that period, he served at various times as Minister for Agriculture, Minister for Finance, Minister for Justice and Minister for Transport, Energy and Communications, and as Chair of the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs. He was Leader of the Fine Gael party and Leader of the Opposition from March, 1987 to November 1990.

 

Mr. Dukes was subsequently appointed Director General of the Institute of International and European Affairs.

 

In his evidence to the Tribunal on Day 285 (1 April 2004), Mr Alan Dukes described how he carried out his own investigation into the second mobile phone licence process following his appointment as Minister for Transport, Energy and Communications.  He stated that he discussed the matter with Senior Departmental Officials John Loughrey, Martin Brennan and Sean Fitzgerald and examined the process which had been followed by the Department for the awarding of the licence, the criteria applied, the requirements to be fulfilled by the applicants, the evaluation methodology, the milestones to be observed in the process, the involvement of the external assessors, the composition and makeup of the project subcommittee involved in the evaluation process and how the winning applicant was ultimately chosen.

 

He told the Tribunal that following these discussions with those Senior Departmental Officials he had no doubt as to the integrity of the process. Importantly, Mr Dukes stated that this view had not changed having regard to all of the evidence that had been given to the Tribunal.

 

“Q… Were you happy that the independent assessment process for the GSM licence would be entrusted to members of the civil service, including the civil servants within what became eventually your Department?

 

A. Was I happy with the process?

 

Q.    That the assessment process was given to civil servants rather than be carried out by some other body?

 

A.    Yes, but the whole process was designed according to a whole series of criteria that were designed to bring about a particular result.

 

Q.    And that was being implemented by the civil service?

 

A.    Yes.

Q.    And you were happy to trust that job to the civil service; you had faith in the integrity of the civil service to carry out that job?

 

A.    Yes.

 

Q.    Do you retain that faith in that integrity in the civil service now?

 

A.    I do, in fact, because during the course of 1997, I initiated another procedure which followed more or less the same kind of track, where civil servants had charge of a process involving other people also.  It was for the construction of a new peat-fired power station.

 

Q.    Again, you were happy to delegate that task to the Civil Service, to rely on their independence and integrity to carry out this?

 

A.    Yes.

 

Q.    And looking at it then and looking at it now, are you happy that this process, so far as you can tell, was not compromised and that it wasn’t possible for somebody to worm their way into it in some way and to  destabilise it?

A.    That’s my belief, yes.

 

Q.    Now, just in relation to the personnel themselves.  I think you knew Mr. Loughrey and Mr. Fitzgerald, Mr. Sean Fitzgerald?

 

A.    Yes, I knew Mr. Fitzgerald from — I had known him in Brussels for a time in the Department of Agriculture previously, and in the Department of Finance.  And Mr. Loughrey I had known previously in the Department of Finance.

 

Q.    And I think you also knew Mr. Brennan, and did you know Mr. Fintan Towey?

 

A.    I came to know Mr. Brennan and Mr. Towey in the Department of Transport, Energy and Communications.

 

Q.    Would you regard them as being honest, reliable civil servants?

A.    Yes.

 

Q.    Of the utmost integrity?

 

A.    Yes.”