An investigation by TDs and Senators into the awarding of the ESAT Digifone mobile telephone licence should not go ahead, the parliamentary legal adviser to the Houses of the Oireachtas has advised.
In a detailed letter to the Joint Committee on Public Enterprise and Transport, the legal adviser, Ms Lia O'Hegarty, recommended it should wait until the Moriarty tribunal finally decides whether it will investigate the licence award.
She even advised the committee should drop a proposal to bring top civil servants who worked on the licence competition before it for a preliminary examination: "I seriously doubt the fruitfulness of such an action," she wrote.
Last night, a number of members of the committee from all parties were openly unhappy about her contribution: "She was asked to check the ground with Moriarty. She was not asked to provide advice herself," said Fianna Fail TD Mr Noel O'Flynn.
Another Fianna Fail TD, Mr Dick Roche, was equally indignant: "We don't need people to tell us what it is that we cannot do. We need people to tell us what it is that we can do."
Earlier this week, a committee member, Fine Gael TD Mr Jim Higgins said the tribunal had indicated it was satisfied a parallel inquiry would not interfere with its work.
The parliamentary legal adviser was adamant the tribunal had not cleared the way for an Oireachtas inquiry.
Lawyers for the tribunal told her it would be inappropriate to indicate their areas of interest until they were ready.
Despite initial anger among Fianna Fail members of the committee at Mr Higgins's statement, they were satisfied last night he had acted in good faith and had been given his information by a Leinster House official.
"I do not think that at this stage it would be proper for the committee to embark upon a fact-finding inquiry", said Ms O'Hegarty, who has recently been appointed to the new post of parliamentary legal adviser. "From the point of view of constitutional law, I think it is imperative that committees seek to enhance rather than discredit their proper role.
"With such considerations in mind I strongly recommend that the committee refrain from holding an inquiry at this stage,"
It could not "be entirely ruled out" that the Moriarty tribunal could decide to investigate the £33,000 payment by Telenor to Fine Gael, or the 1995 licence award to ESAT Digifone, she said.
"I acknowledge that, were the committee to initiate and hold an inquiry into this matter, the possibility of any direct legal challenge to such decision of the committee would be remote in the extreme, if not entirely farfetched," she said.
However, she believed she had to go beyond the "strict question of what the committee might get away with".
