The Irish Times finance editor, Cliff Taylor, has won the overall award for outstanding work in print journalism for being the first to report that Ben Dunne gave more than £1 million to a senior Fianna Fail politician.
He won for linking the former Taoiseach, Mr Haughey, to the payments made by Mr Dunne. The judges said that in a wonderful year for scoops, Cliff Taylor was receiving the accolade for "breaking the story that Mr You Know Who - we all know his name now - received over a million pounds from Ben Dunne".
At the awards ceremony of the ESB National Media Awards yesterday two other Irish Times journalists, Frank McNally and Eileen Battersby, won prizes for colour and sketch-writing and coverage of the arts respectively.
The journalist of the year was Sam Smyth of the Irish Independent for his report on Ben Dunne and Michael Lowry's extension, which prompted the McCracken tribunal.
RTE's crime correspondent, Paul Reynolds, won the national television broadcasting award, and its London correspondent, Brian O'Connell, the national radio broadcasting award. Con Houlihan, columnist of the now defunct Irish Press, received the Hall of Fame award for his outstanding lifelong contribution to sports journalism.
Presenting the awards the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, scotched rumours that he had any misgivings about doing so, in the light of recent media coverage of political events. "I'm quite happy and relaxed about who wins," he said. "If John Bruton or Charles Haughey were Taoiseach they might not be.
"Politics and the media camp on the same turf and feed off each other's work to raise issues, to inform the public and to gain market share," he said.
"We do have complementary and competing roles in matters of public interest, and inevitably there will be clashes between us. Investigative journalism in particular can have dramatic and profound effects on the political situation, on political structures and on the public perception of politics and journalism.
"I would hope we can seek an acceptable equilibrium where we can both fulfil our different roles with a reasonable amount of mutual respect and a robust competitiveness."
Earlier the chairman of the judging panel, Mr Michael Mills, had appealed for a change in the libel laws to enable those who thought themselves above the law to be exposed. He announced that a new award, sponsored by the National Newspapers of Ireland, would be introduced next year to commemorate Veronica Guerin.
Other award winners were Breda Joy of the Kerryman, Richard Curran of the Sunday Tribune, Miriam Lord of the Irish Independent, Conor Lally of the Sunday Tribune, Billy George of the Cork Examiner, Brian McDonald of the Irish Independent, Teresa O'Malley and Tom Sheil of Mid-west and North-west Radio, Robbie Irwin of Radio Ireland and Ann Marie Power, Marian Finucane, Joe Duffy, Kevin Dawson, Mary Raftery, Margaret Ward and Sean O'Rourke, all of RTE.