A verdict is expected at the High Court later today in the action by the Fianna Fail TD, Ms Beverley Cooper-Flynn, alleging she was libelled in a series of RTE broadcasts.
The Co Mayo TD is suing RTE; journalist Charlie Bird and a retired farmer, Mr James Howard, of Wheaton Hall, Drogheda, Co Louth. She claims she was libelled in RTE broadcasts in 1998. The defence deny libel.
In his summing up yesterday, the President of the High Court, Mr Justice Morris, told the jury they should make "their own decision" in the case and hold the balance justly between the parties.
Mr Justice Morris said some jurors might admire Mr Bird's work enormously, while others might regard as strange his delving into other people's troubles and disapprove of the way he stirred up trouble. None of this should be taken into account by the jury.
Some might admire Ms Cooper-Flynn and say she was doing a fine job as a TD and a member of the Public Accounts Committee and in everything else she stood for, while others might see her as a busy-body and "nosey-parker" and be glad to see the back of her. The jury should disregard all such feelings about all of the main personalities. The evidence was what counted, he said.
The defence was one of justification but it was up to the defence to prove this on the balance of probability, Mr Justice Morris explained. Earlier yesterday, Mr Garrett Cooney SC, for Ms CooperFlynn, accused RTE of singling out his client from other employees of National Irish Bank and levelling serious allegations against her because of her family. He described the action as one in which a single individual was pitted against one of the most powerful organisations in the State.
He said a message should be sent out that no citizen could be treated with such arrogant contempt by a powerful organisation like RTE.
The camouflage which the defendants had erected around the real issues had to be pulled away. The first issue was whether Ms Cooper-Flynn had sold a CMI personal portfolio to Mr Howard in or about May, 1993, Mr Cooney said. If the jury found she had, that was the end of the case. If they found she had not, it followed she never said the things RTE had stated she said to Mr Howard.
This was the first and most important issue the jury must decide. If they found on that central point for Ms CooperFlynn, then everything broadcast was false and RTE had failed to establish its defence.
Counsel said it not plausible that Mr Howard had surrendered his "nest egg" of £83,000 in the circumstances he described - at a meeting in 1993 to a girl in her mid-20s whom he had never met before, who was a stranger and who was "hustling and bustling".
There was ample evidence to suggest in a negative way that Ms Cooper-Flynn was not involved in the sale of the CMI personal portfolio to Mr Howard, he added.
Follow the Cooper-Flynn libel case as the jury deliberates throughout today in the Breaking News section of The Irish Times website, www.ireland.com