Telefónica Ireland was a broadband and telecommunications provider in Ireland that traded under the O2 brand (typeset as O2). O2 Ireland was previously called Esat Digifone when it was owned by Esat Telecommunications (and Telenor) from 1997 to 2006. O2 Ireland became a subsidiary of Telefónica in 2006, after its parent company O2 in the United Kingdom was purchased. In June 2013, Hutchison Whampoa announced it would acquire the Irish arm of O2 for €780m. O2 was merged into Hutchison Whampoa's subsidiary Three Ireland in March 2015. History 1997–2000: Origin In 1995 the government, with Michael Lowry as Minister for Transport, Energy and Communications, authorised a second mobile phone network, to compete with Eircell owned by the semi-state Telecom Éireann. The licence was awarded to Esat Digifone, a joint venture between Denis O'Brien's company Esat Telecommunications and Norway's Telenor, which began operations in 1997. The Moriarty Tribunal found in 2008 that the awarding of the licence was influenced by payments made to Lowry by O'Brien. 2000–2001: BT ownership. In 1999, Esat Telecom and Telenor began to dispute how Esat Digifone should be operated. Telenor removed the word Esat from the companies name, and began the attempted removal of Denis O'Brien as chairman of Digifone. Esat Telecom retaliated by threatening to take legal action against Telenor, and make repeated offers to buy Telenor's share of Digifone. In November 1999, Telenor placed a bid for the entire share capital of Esat Telecom as a way of resolving the conflict. The bid was rejected by the majority shareholders of Esat Telecommunications who voted against the takeover. In January 2000, British Telecommunications counteracted Esat Telecom failed bid by placing its own bid to buy Telenor's shares in Digifone. In January 2000, British Telecommunications made a takeover offer for Telenor which was backed by Esat Telecommunications shareholders. Esat Telecommunications became a wholly owned subsidiary of British Telecommunications and was delisted from the stock market. When BT acquired Esat, they began integrating the business along with its Northern Ireland subsidiary, BT (NI). This eventually became BT Ireland. However Esat Digifone was not part of the operations integrated with BT's existing Irish operations. Instead, it became part of the BT Wireless division within BT, and was briefly rebranded simply Digifone. This branding lasted for less than six months. 2001–2005: Demerger from BT Ireland In 2001, the BT Wireless division became mmO2 plc, a separate company, through a