The Mahon tribunal has secured an interim injunction preventing the Sunday Business Post "and all other persons having knowledge of the granting of the order" from publishing confidential information circulated by the planning inquiry.
The injunction was granted yesterday by the President of the High Court, Mr Justice Finnegan, and applies until January 17th next.
Mr Paul O'Higgins SC, for the tribunal, said the injunction was intended to restrain the newspaper from publishing extracts derived from confidential information circulated by the tribunal. The court heard the tribunal was in the process of circulating confidential information.
Referring to a number of leaks in the newspaper over the past while, Mr O'Higgins said the tribunal had a solid apprehension that further breaches may occur and he therefore thought he was entitled to the injunction.
He said the tribunal had made every effort to prevent leaks and had complained to the Garda which carried out a lengthy investigation without success because journalists and others refused to co-operate.
Mr O'Higgins told the court that if an injunction was not granted, the tribunal believed the Sunday Business Post would continue to publish confidential tribunal information and refuse to comply with the directions of the tribunal.
In an affidavit, tribunal solicitor Ms Marcelle Gribbin said that reporter Barry O'Kelly was asked at a public sitting of the tribunal on December 1st last to hand over a copy of a statement made to the tribunal. Barry O'Kelly replied: "I wish no disrespect to the tribunal but I can't do that." When asked why, he said it was because he had destroyed the document. He accepted he had in his possession a number of confidential documents circulated by the tribunal in October 2004.
She said Mr Anthony Dinan (managing director of the Sunday Business Post and the Irish Examiner) was summonsed and asked if he would give an undertaking on behalf of the Sunday Business Post to the tribunal not to publish confidential information.
Mr Dinan refused to give an undertaking in those terms saying that he would have to discuss the matter with his company. The refusal of the company to give an undertaking was confirmed by letter to the tribunal dated December 8th, 2004.
Barry O'Kelly was subsequently recalled and ordered to reveal his sources but he refused to do so. He said he had been advised of the possible consequences of refusing to reveal his sources but continued to do so.
At a resumed hearing on December 9th, Mr Dinan again refused to give an undertaking that the Sunday Business Post would not publish information or reproduce documentation which the tribunal held to be confidential until disclosed at a public hearing or as otherwise directed.
Ms Gribbin said that, in the tribunal's view, it was contrary to the public interest that documents and information circulated in confidence should be leaked to journalists and their newspapers. "They know or ought to know that the information/document has been circulated in confidence by the tribunal to a limited number of people and they ought to know that grave damage is likely to be done to the tribunal in relation to its ongoing investigations in private and in public."
Ms Gribbin said the defendants ought to know that natural justice and the right to fair procedures require that information circulated by the tribunal should not be disclosed in public before being disclosed at a hearing of the tribunal.