The High Court will today rule on whether two Irish Timesjournalists should be ordered to disclose the source of an article about financial payments to Taoiseach Bertie Ahern.
The planning tribunal is seeking an order against Irish Timeseditor Geraldine Kennedy and public affairs correspondent Colm Keena under Section 4 of the Tribunal of Inquiry (Evidence) (Amendment) Act 1997, which would require them to answer questions at the inquiry aimed at disclosing the source of the information about payments to Mr Ahern when he was minister for finance in 1993.
The court's decision will be given by the president of the High Court, Mr Justice Richard Johnson, who heard the case along with Mr Justice Peter Kelly and Mr Justice Iarfhlaith O'Neill for four days last July.
The proceedings arise from publication in The Irish Timeson September 21st, 2006, of an article, written by Mr Keena and entitled: "Tribunal examines payments to Taoiseach".
The tribunal claims the article was based on a confidential letter sent by it during its private investigative stage to a businessman, David McKenna.
The article reported that the tribunal was investigating a number of payments to Mr Ahern around December 1993 and that Mr McKenna was one of three or four people contacted by the tribunal about payments totalling between €50,000 and €100,000.
Both journalists were summoned before the tribunal on September 26th but refused to provide documents or answer questions which might identify the source of the information. Ms Kennedy told the tribunal the documents had been destroyed. In February last, the tribunal initiated the court proceedings.
Lawyers for the tribunal argued in court last July that it was "wholly irresponsible" of the two journalists to have published information gathered in the private session of the tribunal and then to have destroyed the documents on which the information was based. But the tribunal said it was no longer seeking an order compelling the journalists to produce the document relied upon for the article. This would be "futile" as they had confirmed the document had been destroyed.
The tribunal's primary concern was to demonstrate it was not responsible for the disclosure, its lawyers told the court.
In an affidavit, Ms Kennedy said she was satisfied the facts in the article were true and that it was a matter of "legitimate and significant public interest" that the head of the Government received substantial cash payments when he was minister for finance. Lawyers for the newspaper argued that although the source of the article remained anonymous, the tribunal might still be able to identify it if the two journalists answered questions. If the source was identified from something the journalists said or did, their reputation and standing as journalists would be diminished and the flow of information on which they relied for their work undermined. The Irish Times would be "dead as a newspaper" so far as obtaining information was concerned, it was argued. Tribunal lawyers have warned that if the court finds in its favour and the journalists still refuse to reveal their source, they will bring contempt proceedings.
