ON his return to Ireland yesterday Mr Albert Reynolds said he had no intention of paying all the costs of his libel case against the Sunday Times.
"I'll not be railroaded into paying the costs, having won a substantial part of the case, which is that the Sunday Times libelled me," he said at Dublin airport. "They can't get away from that fact - the jury brought in that verdict; they can't change that verdict.
"I believe it's immoral and unjust that the person who wins a libel case is being asked to pay for the total cost. I've no intention of doing that."
He said the cost of the case would not ruin him financially. "I've always paid my bills and I'll pay my bills in the future. It won't put me out of business."
Mr Reynolds said he was "delighted to come back holding my head high with what I went to get". His "name, reputation and integrity" were "everything" to him, and that was why he had gone to London to fight the case.
"This trial was about the Sunday Times calling me a liar. A jury by 10 to one said I wasn't."
The Sunday Times article - written when he was Taoiseach - said he had lied to his cabinet colleagues and the Dail had "sullied Ireland's reputation abroad" gave the unionists "reasons not to be contaminated by the Republic", and "damaged the church of which I am a member", Mr Reynolds said.
It had been an insult both to the Irish Government and the Irish people. "I would have been lacking in responsibility to myself and the country if I had let that pass by."
The record had been "well and truly corrected around the world by the verdict. "Everyone knows who told the truth two years ago."
Mr Reynolds said if there needed to be an appeal because of "poor directions, misdirections, no directions" from the judge in the trial - which his lawyers were "totally dissatisfied with" - then they would go to the Court of Appeal in London.
