Independent TD Beverley Flynn has failed to pay "a red cent" of the €2.8 million legal costs owed by her to RTÉ and her constitutional challenge to laws preventing an undischarged bankrupt being a TD is "nakedly in her own self-interest", the High Court was told yesterday.
RTÉ's counsel Cian Ferriter BL also said the newly-elected Mayo TD had offered to pay just €590,000 or 20 per cent of the legal bill due to RTÉ following her failed libel action against it, and she had in fact not paid anything after RTÉ refused that offer and was instead now "embarking on a litigious frolic" in her own interest.
RTÉ believed Ms Flynn was not doing all she could to discharge her debt, interest on which was accruing at the rate of €500 a day, and that the legal action she had just initiated to the constitutionality of laws restraining an undischarged bankrupt from being elected to the Dáil would incur more costs and reduce the asset pot available to RTÉ, counsel added.
The Bankruptcy Act does not make a distinction between TDs and any other citizen but it appears Beverley Flynn "takes a view she should be treated differently", Mr Ferriter said.
Mr Ferriter made the comments when bankruptcy proceedings brought by RTÉ against Ms Flynn came before Ms Justice Elizabeth Dunne yesterday. The judge was told Ms Flynn had, since the proceedings were brought, initiated proceedings challenging the Electoral Act. Both sets of proceedings were adjourned for two weeks. Ms Flynn was not in court.
The court was told that in court documents Ms Flynn fully accepts her liability to RTÉ but had stated she is not in a position to discharge the full costs.
Gerard Hogan SC, for Ms Flynn, denied the action was in Ms Flynn's own interest and described it as a case of the utmost importance which should be heard urgently.
RTÉ has brought the bankruptcy proceedings against Ms Flynn over her failure to pay any of the legal costs arising from her unsuccessful libel action against the station and its chief news correspondent Charlie Bird.
RTÉ alleges Ms Flynn has failed to pay any of the total bill of €2,848,088 which it contends is due arising from the libel action of 2001. Ms Flynn, then a Fianna Fáil TD but now an Independent deputy, lost her 28-day High Court action against RTÉ, Mr Bird and farmer James Howard. She also failed in her appeal to the Supreme Court against that decision, which was dismissed in 2004.
Both courts awarded costs against Ms Flynn and the costs were certified in September 2005 by the High Court Taxing Master.
Ms Flynn, a former financial adviser with National Irish Bank, had alleged she was libelled in six RTÉ broadcasts in 1998 which reported that, as an employee of NIB, she had encouraged or assisted a number of persons in tax evasion.
Yesterday, Mr Ferriter said not "a cent" had come forward to satisfy the debt to RTÉ. An offer of €590,000 was made after the service of the bankruptcy petition but that was just 20 per cent of the debt owed and RTÉ was not prepared to accept that.
RTÉ believed Ms Flynn was not doing all she could to discharge the debt, counsel said. Her solicitors had written last week to the RTÉ solicitors suggesting that the bankruptcy proceedings be adjourned "in the national interest" pending the TD's constitutional challenge to provisions of the Electoral Act 1992 restraining an undischarged bankrupt being a member of the Dáil.
"What Beverley Flynn proposes to do is embark on litigation in her own interest to block the consequence she most fears," Mr Ferriter said.
Ms Flynn would have to fund the new litigation, he added. How, he asked, could she justify this major constitutional litigation and inevitable appeal to the Supreme Court?
Mr Hogan said Ms Flynn's action was not a litigious frolic and her constitutional challenge had raised weighty and important constitutional issues. Ms Flynn had been returned to the Dáil by the electorate in Mayo, he said.