TWO civil servants who gave public evidence to the Moriarty tribunal last week were attempting to rebut provisional findings that they allowed Michael Lowry to interfere in the awarding of Ireland's second mobile-phone licence.
The tribunal has warned newspapers not to reveal provisional findings released to some parties last November, but last week civil servants were asked directly about some of Judge Moriarty's conclusions.
Martin Brennan, the official who chaired the project group that assessed six applications for the licence in 1995, has denied that he was "in thrall" to Lowry, the former communications minister. This was in response to a question from a lawyer acting for businessman Denis O'Brien.
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It seems the question related to a provisional finding that Lowry interfered with the project group several times.
Brennan is understood to have informed the minister that O'Brien's Esat Digifone consortium was ahead after a preliminary evaluation of the competition. The project group's deliberations were supposed to be confidential, even to the minister, until a final decision was made.
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Moriarty appears to have concluded that Lowry made it known to Fintan Towey, the project group's co-ordinator, in September 1995 that his preference was for the Esat Digifone consortium to win.
In these circumstances, it was claimed, the officials were "in thrall" to Lowry as minister and, because of this, ensured Esat was the successful candidate.
The tribunal claims this was done by abandoning agreed procedures for evaluating the strengths of different applications, and by speeding up the decision-making process while Esat Digifone was in front.
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Brennan was also asked on Friday about a letter he drafted on behalf of Alan Dukes, who replaced Lowry as communications minister in 1996.
The letter was sent to Bobby Molloy, a Progressive Democrat TD, to explain when exactly Dermot Desmond's IIU investment company took a stake in the Esat Digifone consortium.
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Dukes has testified that to his "understanding" the letter drafted by Brennan was accurate.
Last Friday, Brennan was asked by a lawyer representing the Department of Communications whether he misrepresented the rules of the competition to Dukes. He replied: "No".
He was also asked if he concealed the way the Esat Digifone's consortium's make-up had changed. Brennan replied that he did not "believe that I consciously did so".
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Moriarty is believed to have found that some civil servants hid information about when they knew of Desmond's involvement to obscure the department's acquiescence in the concealment of the ownership proposals.
From Brennan's letter it appeared that the department only became aware of Desmond's involvement after Esat Digifone had been granted exclusive negotiation rights in 1995. But it is understood Moriarty believes the officials knew beforehand, and made the award anyway.
The civil servants received legal advice in 1996 that IIU's involvement was not an issue, although last week the tribunal argued that the advice from Richard Nesbitt, a barrister, did not directly address the issue.
Both O'Brien and Lowry deny they improperly interfered with the civil servants in the award process. John Loughrey, the former secretary-general of the department, will give evidence to the tribunal on Tuesday.