Supreme Court to hear 'Irish Times' appeal next month

A five-judge Supreme Court will next month hear the appeal by Irish Timeseditor Geraldine Kennedy and Public Affairs Correspondent Colm Keena against a High Court order requiring them to answer questions from the planning tribunal.

The tribunal wants to ask questions relating to the source of an article about financial payments to former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern when he was Minister for Finance in 1993. A stay on the High Court order permitting the questioning remains in place pending the outcome of the appeal.

When the appeal was briefly mentioned today, Eoin McGonigal SC, for Ms Kennedy and Mr Keena, told the Chief Justice, Mr Justice John Murray, his side's papers had all been lodged and the only matter outstanding was a book, to be agreed by both sides, of the relevant legal authorities.

Mr Justice Murray said that legal submissions on behalf of the tribunal were not yet lodged while The Irish Times' submissions were lodged last July. He was told by counsel for the tribunal their submissions would be lodged later yesterday.

The Chief Justice said the appeal would proceed on December 8th. It is expected to last two days.

In October 2007, a three judge High Court made an order requiring the journalists to answer questions from the tribunal about the source of the article, written by Mr Keena and published in The Irish Timeson September 21st, 2006. The article was published under the heading: "Tribunal examines payments to Taoiseach".

The tribunal claimed the article was based on a confidential letter sent by it during its private investigative stage to a businessman, Mr David McKenna. The article reported the tribunal was investigating a number of payments to Mr Ahern around December 1993 and that Mr McKenna was among three or four persons contacted about payments totalling between €50,000 and €100,000.

In its judgment, the High Court ruled The Irish Timesprivilege against disclosure of sources in the case was "overwhelmingly outweighed" by the "pressing social need" to preserve public confidence in the tribunal. As that could only be done by the tribunal asking the journalists questions, the court said it believed the orders sought by the tribunal were necessary in a democratic society.

The court also stressed its decision must be seen in the circumstances of the particular case where the answers to the questions were unlikely to reveal the source. If the questions could lead to identification of the source, then the journalistic privilege against disclosure could be invoked, the court said.