Radio presenter Chris Barry was poached from Dublin's FM104 station with the promise a £90,000 salary and £50,000 in legal expenses, it was claimed in the High Court yesterday.
Mr Ercus Stewart SC, for FM104, said it was his case that 98FM had encouraged Chris Barry to breach his contract with FM104. In effect, 98FM lured Mr Barry by offering to pay him 2 1/2 times what he was getting with FM104, counsel said.
Yesterday was the second day of the trial of actions arising from Mr Barry's ceasing to work for FM104 last December.
Capital Radio Productions Ltd, trading as FM104, is seeking declarations and orders against Mr Ciaran Gaffney (Chris Barry's real name) of Castleknock, Dublin, and his company, Pavilion Company Ltd, of the same address.
It wants its alleged contract of June 1996 declared valid and binding until next January. Mr Barry and his company want to overturn the 1996 agreement, a declaration that it is void and/or voidable, and damages for breach of contract.
In court yesterday Mr Dermot Hanrahan, FM104 chief executive, said he had had a cordial and excellent relationship with Mr Barry up to but not including the day he left his station. Through his late-night show Mr Barry had made a huge overall contribution to the station's impact.
In 1993 Mr Barry asked for the services of a producer, and although between 14 to 16 producers were subsequently hired over the years, all left in a hurry although some struggled on for six months or so. Virtually all were bright, intelligent people with good credentials who simply needed to be shown what to do, but Mr Barry seemed incapable of doing this, Mr Hanrahan said.
For some reason Mr Barry never seemed to want his producer to be in the station at the same time as himself.
As time progressed, Mr Hanrahan said, he felt complicit in ruining a few people's careers. He and other staff at the station were afraid of upsetting their "star" and had let him get away with it.
Earlier yesterday Mr Thomas Hadges, an American local radio consultant and expert, said he would have expected Mr Barry's departure from FM104 to have had some but not significant impact on that station's listenership.
Mr Barry's replacement on FM104, Mr Adrian Kennedy, was adequate although he was not a superstar, the witness said.
The hearing before Ms Justice Laffoy continues today.