A Supreme Court judge has held that An Garda Síochána did not waive public interest privilege over documents at issue in proceedings between John McDonald and RTÉ.
Mr Justice Fennelly delivered a short judgment on 25 January 2001 in proceedings in which Patrick Culligan and Michael P. Staunton were notice parties.
He stated that he fully agreed with the judgment of Ms Justice McGuinness. In particular, he agreed that, on the facts of the case, the Gardaí had not waived any public interest privilege attaching to documents in their possession.
Public interest privilege can protect material from disclosure where the public interest in keeping it confidential outweighs the case for its production in legal proceedings.
Mr Justice Fennelly added one qualification. He said that, even if the facts had been different, it would not necessarily follow that individual Garda officers could effectively waive a privilege of this character through their own actions.
The supplied judgment is confined to that point. It does not set out the underlying factual dispute, identify the documents concerned or reproduce the reasoning of Ms Justice McGuinness with which Mr Justice Fennelly agreed.
It also does not state, in this individual judgment, the ultimate form of the Supreme Court's order or the procedural consequences for McDonald, RTÉ or the notice parties. Those matters would require the accompanying judgment or judgments in the appeal.