Sinn Féin senator Chris Andrews has been permitted to deliver a late reply to the defence to his defamation action against The Irish Times Limited and journalist Harry McGee.
In High Court proceedings, Andrews claims he was defamed in an article by McGee, a political correspondent with The Irish Times, published by the newspaper on October 9th, 2023, concerning the Sinn Féin response to the Hamas attack on Israel two days earlier. Among matters covered in the article were comments by Andrews on social media about the events in Israel.
The matter came before Judge Michael Twomey on Monday via a pretrial application by barrister Ronan Lavery, for Andrews, for an order extending the time for delivery of his reply to the defence.
The plaintiff’s 11-month delay providing that reply arose from events including the November 2024 general election, in which his client, the outgoing Sinn Féin TD for Dublin Bay South, was “fully engaged”, counsel said. After Andrews lost his seat, he was involved in the Seanad election, he said.
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His client was also “abducted” when participating in an October 2025 flotilla seeking to bring aid to the people of Gaza, counsel said.
Andrews’s lawyers served a statement of claim on November 7th, 2023, and a defence was delivered in mid-July 2024, after particulars of the claim were sought and provided.
Any reply was due within two weeks of delivery of the defence. The reply was delivered on June 9th, 2025.
Lavery said his client needed time to engage with various specific pleas in the defence to the “vile” defamation, including pleas of qualified privilege and fair and reasonable publication on a matter of public interest.
Extending time for the reply would not prejudice the defendants, whose defence took seven months to deliver, he said. Case law provides an extension of time should be refused only in exceptional circumstances, which did not arise here, he added.
The application was opposed by barrister John Maher, for the defendants, on grounds the plaintiff was outside the relevant time limit to reply, and that a reply was not necessary.
This was “not a complex case”, it was “incumbent” on a plaintiff to move their case along and there was nothing to explain why it had taken almost a year to provide the reply, Maher said.
The case had “cast a shadow” over the defendant reporter, his reporting and the “entire press gallery” in Leinster House, he said.
The reply sought to expand the plaintiff’s case to include arguments there was “some kind of hidden consensus within the media against Sinn Féin”, he added.
In response, Lavery said the matters addressed in the reply were in response to issues raised in the defence.
Having heard the sides, the judge said that while there had been a significant delay in delivery of the reply, which there should not have been, there had also been delay by the defence. While the court noted the criticisms made by the defence, he did not believe the defendants had been prejudiced by the delay.
In the circumstances, he would permit an extension of time for delivery of the reply and reserve costs of this application pending the hearing of the action.
