Garda Síochána are relevant to the contested issues in the action. I am quite satisfied from the nature of the documents sought by the plaintiff that discovery of these documents could be of considerable advantage to the plaintiff in advancing his case, particularly for aggravated and/or exemplary damages and also in attacking the defendants' defence, both in respect of reasonable publication pursuant to s. 26 of the Defamation Act and the defence to the plaintiff's claim for aggravated and/or exemplary damages. The defendant relied on journalistic privilege as to journalists’ sources in respect of all documents. The hearing of the motion for discovery was also treated as the hearing of the claim to privilege. The issues for the Court to determine were whether journalistic privilege applied to the documents and whether the documents in Category 7 were relevant. O’Neill J went on to say at para. 20: I would readily agree with [counsel for the defendant] that the interest which is identified as protected by journalistic privilege is the proper functioning of journalism, namely, that there is a free flow of information from the public to journalists which is not inhibited or "chilled" by the prospect that the source will be disclosed. Implicit in all of this is that the risk to the proper functioning of journalism is disclosure or identification of the person supplying the information. Ordinarily, information supplied will end up published; thus, per se, it could not be said that the content of the information enjoyed privilege from disclosure. If, however, the content of the information which, necessarily, was not published, could lead to the identification of the source, then it would seem to me that it too must enjoy the privilege from disclosure, as otherwise, the overall purpose of the privilege would fail. He concluded that journalistic privilege did not apply in the circumstances to communications between the complainant and the defendant even independently of any question of financial inducements being offered to the
Garda Síochána are relevant to the contested issues in the action. I am quite satisfied from the nature of the documents sought by the plaintiff that discovery of these documents could be of considerable advantage to the plaintiff in advancing his case, particularly for aggravated and/or exemplary damages and also in attacking the defendants' defence, both in respect of reasonable publication pursuant to s. 26 of the Defamation Act and the defence to the plaintiff's claim for aggravated and/or exemplary damages. The defendant relied on journalistic privilege as to journalists’ sources in respect of all documents. The hearing of the motion for discovery was also treated as the hearing of the claim to privilege. The issues for the Court to determine were whether journalistic privilege applied to the documents and whether the documents in Category 7 were relevant. O’Neill J went on to say at para. 20: I would readily agree with [counsel for the defendant] that the interest which is identified as protected by journalistic privilege is the proper functioning of journalism, namely, that there is a free flow of information from the public to journalists which is not inhibited or "chilled" by the prospect that the source will be disclosed. Implicit in all of this is that the risk to the proper functioning of journalism is disclosure or identification of the person supplying the information. Ordinarily, information supplied will end up published; thus, per se, it could not be said that the content of the information enjoyed privilege from disclosure. If, however, the content of the information which, necessarily, was not published, could lead to the identification of the source, then it would seem to me that it too must enjoy the privilege from disclosure, as otherwise, the overall purpose of the privilege would fail. He concluded that journalistic privilege did not apply in the circumstances to communications between the complainant and the defendant even independently of any question of financial inducements being offered to the
defamation%202.docx