It is "a peculiar thing" that when men succeed in business, it is put down to their being good at business but when a woman succeeds, there is almost a feeling that must owe itself to something other than her ability in the business sphere, counsel for Monica Leech said.
That mentality was what beset Ms Leech, an award-winning businesswoman who had worked from a young age, on December 16th, 2004, Mr Paul O'Higgins SC said.
A caller to Liveline, whose name turned out not to be Norman as he had called himself, had suggested on that date that maybe Ms Leech was prepared to betray her husband, to perform sexual favours, including oral sex, on then environment minister Martin Cullen and to prostitute herself for the sale of contracts, counsel said.
The caller had to some degree taken RTÉ by surprise and the call was immediately cut but in circumstances which gave little joy to Ms Leech, counsel said. RTÉ had later dissociated itself from the remarks but had apologised to its listeners, and not, strangely, to Ms Leech, her husband or family for whom the comments represented, "to put it mildly, a horror".
The comments came upon RTÉ unexpectedly and no one, before or since, had suggested there was a word of truth in them, counsel for Ms Leech said.
The Irish Independent also did not say there was a word of truth in them or that it ever believed them but, despite that, it had decided this "really was too good to miss and a good way to sell a newspaper". It knew the comments were totally false but happily repeated and retailed them, Mr O'Higgins said.
Earlier, he said Ms Leech was one of 12 children who had married young and raised her family while working at various jobs from the time she left college in 1979. She and her husband, an architect, had lived and worked in Germany for some years before returning to Waterford in 1991. Ms Leech's natural bent was in the area of marketing and communications. She had won awards, had worked with the Jurys group and was chief executive officer of Waterford Tourism and president of the National Chambers of Commerce.
She had built up her own PR business in Waterford, Monica Leech Communications, and had met Mr Cullen through her job with the Waterford Chamber of Commerce.
That led to a series of communications contracts in the various departments where Mr Cullen was. All of this, Mr O'Higgins said, was ongoing on December 16th, 2004, when the call was made to Liveline.