Press release designed to damage Wicklow councillors, court told

A press release issued by Wicklow County Council was personally written by county manager Eddie Sheehy and designed to cause maximum damage to three named councillors, a court heard yesterday.

Two members of Wicklow County Council, Tommy Cullen and Barry Nevin, are suing Mr Sheehy for defamation arising from a row over the acquisition of a three-acre housing site near Charlesland, Greystones, for €3 million in 2011.

Councillors Cullen and Nevin – along with a third councillor James O’Shaughnessy who is not a party to the defamation action – had complained the site was land-locked, prone to flooding, and there was a dispute over its ownership. They said an alternative estimate valued the site at about €697,000.

Wicklow Circuit Court has heard the councillors had complained to Minister for Environment Phil Hogan, who appointed senior counsel Séamus Woulfe to review the deal.

Mr Woulfe completed his review in early 2013 and concluded “almost all” the councillors’ concerns were “not well-founded or are misconceived”.

Mr Sheehy acknowledged that within three hours of receiving Mr Woulfe’s report on April 23rd last year, he drafted and issued a press release that claimed the council had lost €200,000 because of the review “of the unfounded and misconceived allegations of councillors Cullen, Nevin and O’Shaughnessy”.

Blame
Mr Cullen and Mr Nevin claim the words implied they had wasted public money and were unfit to act as councillors.

Yesterday, senior counsel Colm P Condon, for the plaintiffs, put it to Mr Sheehy that the press release was to show he attached blame to the councillors for the additional costs.

Mr Condon put it to Mr Sheehy that he had been involved in a High Court case over a potential ban on three councillors, one of whom was Mr Cullen, from serving as councillors, and that, after the High Court ruled in the councillors’ favour, Mr Sheehy had not issued a press release on that occasion. Mr Sheehy agreed that he had not done so.

Mr Condon put it to Mr Sheehy that the April 23rd press release was “inflicting the ultimate amount of embarrassment and damage” because “as far as you were concerned, they had initiated the review”.

Mr Sheehy replied: “I reject totally the proposition that you are putting to me.” He said he had only one motive and that was “to put a small number of facts” into the public domain “in the public interest”.

The hearing continues.