REPORT ERROR:THE MAHON tribunal will be publishing an apology and correction relating to Conor Haughey in newspapers tomorrow concerning its reference to him in its final report. This is also expected to state that the website is currently being corrected where it refers to him.
This follows five days of discussions between his lawyers and the tribunal, arising out of a passage in its final report under the heading, “Conor Haughey and Mr John Barnicle”. Conor Haughey did not give evidence to the tribunal. His brother, Ciarán Haughey, did.
The passage complained of related to the Cargobridge Module of the tribunal.
It stated: “The tribunal rejected the evidence of Messrs Haughey and Barnicle to the effect that they believed, when initially giving sworn evidence to the Tribunal on the 3rd of October 2006 that they each had received only IR£10,000.00 from the proceeds of the sale of Abervanta Limited’s interest in the Cargobridge lands, and that they had forgotten or were otherwise unaware of the disbursement details of the great bulk of those funds.
“The tribunal was satisfied that this evidence was given with the full knowledge that it was false, and that it was given for the purpose of concealing from the Tribunal the fact that Mr Haughey and Mr Barnicle had received between them, directly or indirectly, approximately £164,000.00 in total of those proceeds. Their false and misleading information necessitated their recall to give additional evidence to the tribunal in relation to the disbursal of the proceeds of sale.”
Last Friday The Irish Times received a fax from the tribunal stating: “Please note that a change has been made to the tribunal’s final report at pages 2502 and 2012. Details of the aforementioned change has been posted on the tribunal’s website.” No details of the nature of the change were given.
The Irish Times understands that lawyers for Mr Haughey were preparing to take legal proceedings in the High Court today seeking orders that the tribunal publish a full correction and apology acknowledging that Conor Haughey had no part in the matters examined by the tribunal, seeking the recall of hard copies and disks containing the erroneous information, steps to discover who had downloaded the online early version of the report and efforts to ensure the corrected version was fully disseminated.
They are likely to continue to pursue these issues following the publication of the correction and apology.