The High Court today confirmed the appointment of Michael McAteer of Grant Thornton as examiner to three Eircom Group companies.

The companies are Eircom Ltd, Meteor Mobile Communications Ltd and Irish Telecommunications Investments Ltd.

The examiner informed Mr Justice Peter Kelly that April 23rd is the deadline for any interested parties to express an interest in a sales process.

If a sales process is required, this process will be managed by Morgan Stanley.

An examiner is appointed under a process designed to allow a company protection from it's creditors for 100 days. This allows time to restructure any outstanding debts, in an effort to aid the company's survival.

It is the examiner's intention that impaired creditors will be notified of his proposal for Eircom as a going concern by Friday 11 May 2012.

Creditor meetings will then be held the following week. The High Court will be informed of the results of these meetings as

soon as practicable and it is hoped that a confirmation hearing will conclude the proceedings before the end of May 2012, well in advance of the statutory maximum length for an examinership process of 100 days.

Michael McAteer of Grant Thornton had been appointed as interim examiner on March 30th. Eircom has debts of almost €4 billion.