What was the evidence of the civil servants in relation to Michael Andersen / AMI?
The evidence given during the course of the lengthy public hearings into the second mobile phone licence module has served to emphasise the vital role played by Mr Michael Andersen and his AMI team in the second mobile phone licence process. For instance, Mr Martin Brennan, Principal Office of the DTEC and the Chairman of the Departmental team (PTGSM) charged with the responsibility for the awarding of the second mobile phone licence stated as follows on Day 173 (24 February 2003).
“… I have a sense in which the Tribunal is now trying to get me to fill the gaps caused by the fact that Michael Andersen seems not to be available, and that’s putting me in a difficult situation because I don’t have access to the records.”
Mr Brennan went on to state:-
Q. “…it indicates that at that meeting, a significant amount of work was going to be done on market development, tariffs, roaming, marketing aspect, financial aspect, management dimension, and management aspect. Do I understand that you were a member of most of the sub-groups dealing with those items? I think Mr. Fintan Towey is a member of all of them, I think.
A. I don’t know whether I was or not. I sat in on most of them. The financial I probably didn’t sit in on, but I couldn’t say that for sure, I mean. This was another case where if Andersens had records, it would help.
But even if I sat in, I don’t think I was in a leadership position because of my Chairmanship of the Project Group, in the sense that different people had probed different matters in detail. I think, for example, it may have been obvious from the presentation meetings that the role of Maev Nic Lochlainn was to focus on certain aspects of applications, and she would have led for us when those came up for discussion in Copenhagen. And my recollection is that in all cases, the driver of the discussion was first based on the views of the consultants. “(emphasis added)
On the issue of the quantitative evaluation (an issue which appears to be central to the Tribunal’s line of inquiry), Mr Brennan stated:
“I am virtually certain that the quantitative evaluation was carried out almost exclusively by Andersens.”
On Day 180 (6 February 2003) Mr Brennan stated in response to queries being put to him by Counsel for the Tribunal:
“I mean, we have been around this a few times now. I can’t give you any more information about it. I do appreciate the difficulty the Tribunal has by not having access to the consultants at this stage. But as I said once or twice before, I can’t compensate for that.” (emphasis added)
On Day 228 (25 June 2003), again in response to questioning by Counsel for the Tribunal, Mr Brennan stated:-
“I must be communicating badly today. I am still trying to get across the message that in my mind, it would have been impossible to get a result from this competition respecting the descending order of priority without weighting.
Now, it may well be that Andersen Management International were of a different mindset. It may well be that they were focussed on their own original model, which may have been designed without weighting. I said here before and I am saying now again, I can’t compensate for the fact that he won’t come and answer. All I can tell you is that is what I thought at the time, what I was thinking at the time.”
This issue of the absolute centrality of Michael Andersen and his AMI team to the second mobile phone licence process was repeated time and time again by the many witnesses from the Department of Transport, Energy and Communications and from the Department of Finance who have given evidence in public. This absolute centrality of Michael Andersen and his AMI team to the second mobile phone licence process has never been contested or questioned by any party, including by the Moriarty Tribunal itself.
