Sir, - Ed Moloney contends (Opinion, September 9th) that had William Stobie known that he (Ed Moloney) would hand over the notes of his interview (with Stobie) to the police and then follow through by giving evidence in court (presumably of the veracity of the notes) he (Stobie) would never have given the interview in the first place.
Why on earth not? What difference would it have made to Stobie? He wanted the material in the interview (and in the notes) to be made public, so why would he have objected to the notes themselves being made public and Ed Moloney giving evidence of the veracity of the notes?
There is a conflict in this between two competing public interests: the public interest in protecting journalists' sources and the public interest in having all material evidence available for a criminal trial. It seems obvious that where one of these considerations is weak or non-existent, the other prevails or should do so. This appears to be the case in this instance.
By the way, had somebody written that Ed Moloney had fabricated the interview with William Stobie in pursuit of a personal political agenda and in deliberate violation of his responsibilities as a journalist to be truthful to his readers, I suspect that Ed Moloney would have instituted a libel action. Would he have felt any compunction in showing the falsehood of the allegation made concerning him by revealing in the course of the libel action his notes of his interview with William Stobie? And would anybody - William Stobie, the NUJ, the New York media celebrities or anybody else - have thought him wrong to have done so? Ed Moloney asks what I would have done in the case of my interview with Dominic McGlinchey in 1984. If it had been alleged that I had made up the interview, I would have revealed parts of the notes of the interview and a taperecording of part of the interview (the tape recorder broke down and neither McGlinchey nor myself could rectify it) to prove otherwise. I would not have revealed the full notes of the interview, for they contained material that I agreed with McGlinchey to keep confidential. For that reason, I would not have revealed my notes to the police. No such issue arises, apparently, in the case of the Stobie interview.
Ed Moloney asks how is it that I cannot see clearly what several newspapers, the NUJ and an array of media celebrities perceive: the obvious truth that he affirms. May I turn that around and ask: can the Irish High and Supreme Court, the English High Court, the Court of Appeal, the House of Lords, the European Court of Human Rights and the US Supreme Court all be wrong about the non-absolutist nature of public interest in the protection of journalists' sources? Ed Moloney may well be right that 20 years ago I might well have been absolutist about issues such as this, but would I have been right? Surely, I can allow age to bring even a little wisdom? - Yours, etc.,
Vincent Browne, Dublin.