JUDGE SAYS COURT NOT ENTITLED TO RESTRAIN REPORTING OF DAIL BUSINESS
A High Court judge has said it is clear it is not entitled to restrain fair reporting of Dail utterances.
Mr Justice Donald Binchy said it was never his intention that an order preventing publication of Denis O’Brien’s banking arrangements with IBRC would be construed in that light.
He will later decide whether his judgement from two weeks ago should be published in an unredacted form.
Media outlets including RTÉ and The Irish Times are in court over uncertainty about whether they could publish comments made under Dail privilege last week by TD Catherine Murphy in relation to the businessman’s banking affairs in light of the injunction.
Our Courts Correspondent Francesca Comyn says RTE’s next course of action will depend on if the judgement is published in an unredacted form or not.
“As it stands, RTÉ feels that the variation of the order that Denis O’Brien’s side is looking for could be restrictive, given the nature of the topic and the amount of publicity and debate surrounding it and they’re afraid that such a variation of the order would be too narrow in scope” she said.
“But they are pretty much waiting to see whether the judgment will be redacted or not – if it’s not redacted, then their application for a wider variation of the order may be unnecessary” she said.
