MR JAMES PRICE QC, counsel for the Sunday Times, apologise to a libel jury yesterday for having to read to them "indigestible" evidence from the Dail Select Committee's report on the downfall of the Reynolds's government.
After listening to Mr Price reading the relevant extracts for more than 90 minutes, Mr Justice French adjourned the hearing, stating: "This is difficult to absorb or virtually impossible."
Mr Price told the jury that "happily" he would not read the whole report to them, just selected passages which the Sunday Times believed supported its case that the former Taoiseach, Mr Alberta Reynolds, misled the Dail over the Duggan affair. He also read out extracts that Mr Reynolds's legal team had chosen.
He began by quoting from the then Minister for Justice, Ms Maire Geoghegan Quinn's speech to the Dail on November 16th, 1994, which Mr Price reminded the jury was "the same day we say Mr Reynolds drove a stake through Harry's [Whelehan] heart".
In her speech, Ms GeogheganQuinn apologised for misleading the Mouse over whether the paedophile priest Brendan Smyth was the first case to be considered under a new section in the Extradition Act.
Mr Price then quoted from her speech to the Dail on December 6th, 1994 in which she stated that she could not recall telling the Attorney General, Mr Eoghan Fitzsimons, that the Government had chosen not to refer to the Duggan case in Mr Reynolds's speech outlining the delays in Smyth's extradition.
"I do not remember making that statement . . but I accept his word," she added.
At the request of Mr Reynolds's legal team, Mr Price then read extracts from Mr Bertie Ahern's evidence to the Dail select committee describing Mr Fitzsimons's attempts to explain the legal complexities of the Duggan case to ministers on November 14th, 1994. "We were content to wait for clarification," he said.
Another passage of Mr Ahern's evidence relating to his denials that there was "any kind of formal agreement" to withhold information on the Duggan case or refer to it in Mr Reynolds's speech was also read to the jury.
Turning to the evidence of then Minister for Social Welfare, Dr Michael Woods, Mr Price read out his answers to questions relating to whether he thought it was strange" that he did not know Mr Reynolds had already asked Mr Whelehan to resign on November 14th, 1994, the day before his speech supporting his appointment.
Before reading out the final passage, Mr Price joked with the jury, telling them they "should be suspicious of it" because Mr Reynolds and the Sunday Times had requested it be put before them.
The extract related to Dr Woods's evidence on whether Mr Reynolds had offered the first judicial post in the High Court to Mr Whelehan if he resigned as President and the actions of ministers when it became apparent the Government might fall.
"In a way it became hard to know what the Labour Party wanted at that stage," Dr Woods told the committee.
The hearing was adjourned until Monday when the jury will watch a four hour videotape of evidence from the committee.