There was clearly an issue of public interest at stake in the 28-day Beverley Cooper-Flynn/RTE libel trial.
A TD responsible, not only for legislation in general, but for the implementation of State policy on public finances, was alleged to have encouraged and facilitated citizens in evading their legal obligations to pay tax.
RTE's response to the libel writ issued by Ms Cooper-Flynn was to plead justification. This meant the station did not deny that the material published was damaging. It argued that it was true, and therefore justified. This must then be proved in court.
There is no onus on the plaintiff to prove the allegations are not true.
The retired farmer who had appeared on air in the offending programme was being sued separately. He had alleged that Ms Cooper-Flynn had sold him a CMI policy where his money would be hidden from the tax man, and had urged him not to avail of the tax amnesty. His case was greatly weakened by the fact that the name on the documentation relating to his policy was not Beverley Cooper-Flynn's, but that of another bank employee, Ms Patricia Roche. One of the great unsolved mysteries of the case was what she would have said had she given evidence.
The jury found that it was not proved Ms Cooper-Flynn induced Mr Howard to avoid paying tax. But the general issue remained - that she had done so with other people.
RTE had scored an early victory in the High Court, when it won discovery of National Irish Bank documents that enabled it to search for other customers of Ms Cooper-Flynn.
This allowed it to search out witnesses who had dealings with the TD, and subpoena them to give evidence.
Other witnesses had come forward voluntarily in the course of its investigation of the NIB story.
It had therefore assembled a number of witnesses who would give evidence that Ms Cooper-Flynn had advised them to take out a CMI policy instead of availing of the tax amnesty.
It suffered a setback early on in the case when Mr Justice Morris ruled out a number of these witnesses on the grounds that they were not sold the specific policy Mr Howard, and the original RTE programme, referred to. This left it with four investors.
It had also subpoenaed two former bank employees who had worked with Ms Cooper-Flynn, Mr Nigel Darcy and Mr Patrick Cooney.
Mr Darcy's evidence was frequently interrupted by his applications to the judge seeking not to answer specific questions because he feared he might incriminate himself in relation to other investigations taking place into NIB. One of his answers was highly significant - his statement that the CMI products in question were specifically intended by CMI for non-residents. Everyone in court knew that they had been sold to residents.
Mr Patrick Cooney, head of the unit selling these policies, attempted to explain a reference to "hot money" in a letter he wrote to his staff.
But after all this evidence had been heard the essential question was whether the jury believed Ms Cooper-Flynn, who denied everything said about her, or the investors.
Although she was in the witness box for the best part of a week, calm and composed, insisting that it was no part of her role to give tax advice, and that she had no idea where the investors' money came from, in the end of the day the jury did not believe everything she said.