BILLIONAIRE BUSINESSMAN DENIS O’Brien has received €5.8m from the State Claims Agency for legal costs associated with the Moriarty Tribunal.

O’Brien, a mogul in Ireland’s communications and media industries, gave evidence at the tribunal on nearly two dozen occasions between 2001 and 2010.

The Irish Independent has reported that the payment to settle O’Brien’s costs application is the largest of its kind that has ever been given to a tribunal witness in the history of the State.

The State Claims Agency, which is administering the large payment to O’Brien, is responsible for managing claims for costs that are taken against the State.

A spokesperson for the agency said it “does not comment on individual claims” when contacted today by The Journal. 

The costs claim relates to the Moriarty Tribunal, known formally as the Tribunal of Inquiry into certain Payments to Politicians and Related Matters. 

The tribunal was established in 1997 to examine payments made to former Taoiseach Charles Haughey and to Michael Lowry, a former Fine Gael Minister for Communications and current independent TD for Tipperary North.

It concluded that Lowry had an “insidious and pervasive” influence over the awarding of Ireland’s second mobile phone licence in the 1990s to O’Brien’s company Esat Digifone. 

The 2011 tribunal report said that Lowry gave “substantive information” to O’Brien that was “of significant value and assistance to him in securing the licence” and said that O’Brien made two secret payments to Lowry in 1996 and 1999 totalling £500,000 and supported a loan of £420,000 given to Lowry in 1999.

O’Brien rejected the findings of the tribunal, claiming it was grounded in “opinions” and did not amount to findings of evidence, fact or law. Lowry claimed the tribunal’s report was “factually wrong and deliberately misleading”.

An investigation by gardaí in the Criminal Assets Bureau following the tribunal’s findings, which were published in 2011, has been ongoing for years.

In January, gardaí confirmed that a file has been sent to the Director of Public Prosecutions on the matter.

O’Brien and the State are currently being sued by Persona Digital Telephony Limited and Sigma Wireless Networks limited, who were unsuccessful bidders for the phone licence in the 90s. In January, a High Court judge issued an order to O’Brien in relation to document discovery in the case.

With reporting from Jane Moore