The High Court has refused Maurice Quinlivan’s application for an interlocutory injunction against Willie O’Dea over remarks reported in the Limerick Chronicle during the run-up to the June 2009 local elections. The ruling concerned interim relief only; the court did not decide the underlying slander claim.
Quinlivan, a Sinn Féin candidate for election as a Limerick council member, sought orders restraining O’Dea from repeating alleged slander and, under section 11(5) of the Prevention of Electoral Abuses Act 1923, from repeating false statements about his character or conduct as a candidate.
The dispute followed a newspaper interview after Quinlivan criticised O’Dea over the use of civil servants on constituency matters and offers of help to planning applicants. O’Dea admitted asking the reporter: “I suppose I am going a bit too far when I say this but I’d like to ask Mr. Quinlivan is the brothel still closed?” He denied saying Quinlivan owned or part-owned an apartment at Clancy Strand where a brothel had been discovered.
The court said the newspaper’s opening paragraph did not clearly establish that O’Dea had made the alleged ownership statement. It noted that the article identified Quinlivan’s brother as the apartment’s owner and said the brothel was kept by three Brazilian women who occupied it as tenants. The judge said the admitted question was not a specific false statement of fact of the kind required for an injunction under the 1923 Act. The evidence also did not establish a risk that the disputed ownership statement would be repeated before the election.
Considering the separate application to restrain repetition of slander, the judge said the admitted question could carry a defamatory implication in context and that there was a fair issue to be tried on that point. But it concerned words already spoken, for which the court said the remedy could only lie in damages. The judge found no clear evidence that a defamatory statement was likely to be repeated before trial, and said the need to protect freedom of speech weighed against an injunction.
The motion was refused. The judgment did not determine whether the admitted question was defamatory or whether O’Dea made the disputed ownership allegation; those issues were not resolved at this interlocutory hearing.