Humbert Summer School: The Mahon tribunal has "lost its focus" and has "come up with absolutely nothing", Independent Mayo TD Ms Beverley Flynn has claimed.
Addressing the Humbert Summer School in Ballina, Co Mayo, this week Ms Flynn also said she was the "only person in banking" who had been "vigorously pursued by at times a very hostile media", in spite of reports involving several financial institutions which have been in circulation since 1998.
On the subject of the media and the public interest just 24 hours after her appearance at the Mahon tribunal in Dublin Castle, Ms Flynn said she had been surprised at the content of news headlines after she had taken the stand.
"It was not my evidence, but in fact a comment of counsel for the tribunal that I had 'selective amnesia'," which had made such headlines, she noted.
"The function of a tribunal of inquiry is to establish the facts. They should be inquisitorial and not adversarial. Courtroom tactics are not appropriate when courtroom rules don't apply.
"As a witness you are not in a position to make flippant remarks or remarks deliberately designed to get a headline," Ms Flynn added. "Counsel for the tribunal should follow the same standard."
The claim made by Ms Patricia Dillon SC, for the tribunal, on Wednesday that Ms Flynn had "selective amnesia" was in her view "a comment" on her evidence which "could be constructed as trying to predetermine the outcome" of the tribunal. The outcome was a matter for the tribunal's chairman when he had heard all the evidence, she said.
It was undoubtedly "in the public interest" that investigations were required from time to time, but she had lost count of how many tribunals were in train.
"Surely there has to be a better way of carrying out our business than an open-ended tribunal at huge costs to the taxpayer."
In a lengthy reference to her recent failed libel action against RTÉ and her experience of the media, Ms Flynn said competition had taken the "humanity" out of journalism. Today's journalists were "not just failing to observe the old ethics of their profession" but also seemed "completely unaware that such ethics should exist in the first place".
"Dismissive, disparaging" remarks were the "stock in trade" of many "Dublin journalists", especially when speaking of people "outside the Pale," Ms Flynn said. Such comments came from "people whose own origins are not that far removed from the bog and the snipe grass - dig back a generation or two and maybe there is more dung on the boots than they would like to admit", she said.
A person who believed he or she had been libelled had to put their "entire livelihood on the line" to clear their name, she said. The media had been lobbying the Government for years to relax libel laws but "the reality is that if a journalist is sure of his/her story and has checked out the fact, then what has he to fear,"she said.
"Very often the TV station is insured against libel," she added.
Ms Flynn said she had never been in a policy-making role when employed by NIB and had always believed she was acting lawfully.
Ms Flynn quoted Irish Times journalist Paul Cullen as providing a "clue" as to "why journalists did not go after the big fish" in recent financial scandals.
At the MacGill Summer School in Donegal earlier this week, Mr Cullen had said that perhaps journalists had been "soft" on lawyers' fees "perhaps because we largely share the same middle-class professional values and count many lawyers among our friends".
Perhaps this also applied to "bankers", Ms Flynn said. "Obviously I have been mixing in the wrong social circles."
During questions, Ms Flynn said she would run again as a TD for Mayo, but as an independent. Asked about Fianna Fáil's decision to expel her, Ms Flynn commented: "The reality is that once Bertie says you're out, you're out."
Defending the media's role, Mr John Downing, political editor of the Star, queried Ms Flynn's reluctance to reform the libel laws while also criticising the inequities of the legal system.
Had she won her libel case, the taxpayer and television licence payer would have footed the bill, he said.
In fact, the Dáil had allowed a situation to develop where we had "handed over our lives" to the legal profession, he said.
Mr James Laffey, editor of the Western People, said Ms Flynn's one fault was to "sue" and she had incurred the wrath of the media as a result.
Her case should "not be used as part of the media's job in defending the public interest". In his view, the growth of regional newspapers reflected the fact that such newspapers were more in touch with their readers.
Mr Tom Shiel of the the Connaught Telegraph agreed that some sections of the media of the "more compact" type had "gone beyond the bounds" of fair coverage. But, in the main, national newspapers had been responsible in their treatment of the Flynn case and the Flynn family.
