Mahon tribunal lawyers have applied to the High Court for an order instructing Sunday Business Post journalist Barry O'Kelly to reveal the source of stories he wrote based on leaked confidential documents from the tribunal.
Mr O'Kelly received a summons yesterday to appear before the High Court on January 17th, when the tribunal will attempt to force him to reveal his sources and to hand over the leaked documents in question.
Mr O'Kelly said last night he would be fighting the application "tooth and nail".
He added: "Under absolutely no circumstances will I divulge my sources. It is an impossible request that runs contrary to the code of ethics within newspapers."
Last October the Sunday Business Post published two articles by Mr O'Kelly based on confidential documents circulated by the tribunal to parties appearing before it.
When called to appear before the tribunal, Mr O'Kelly refused to divulge his sources and said he had destroyed the documents, in spite of a direction by the tribunal not to do so. The tribunal was then successful in securing a High Court injunction preventing all newspapers from publishing stories based on information leaked from the tribunal. Mr O'Kelly said: "I will go to prison if necessary but, hopefully, it won't come down to that. I hope someone has the sense to put a stop to this before that happens.
"I don't want to sound disrespectful to the tribunal as it does great work. I am simply doing my job and we will fight this application tooth and nail."