The High Court has refused former Garda Commissioner Noirín O’Sullivan’s application to extend the time limit for bringing defamation proceedings against the Irish Examiner over articles published in October 2016.
Ms Justice Pilkington ruled on 7 November 2018 that the interests of justice did not require an extension and that the prejudice to O’Sullivan from being unable to sue did not significantly outweigh the prejudice to the newspaper from losing its limitation defence.
The application concerned an edition of the Irish Examiner published on 4 October 2016. It included a front-page story headlined “Senior Gardaí ‘tried to destroy’ source”, an editorial and an analysis. The judgment said O’Sullivan was not named in the articles. She was named in connection with them the following day in an RTÉ broadcast and in the Dáil, after which the matter was widely reported.
O’Sullivan sought permission to bring the proposed claim outside the usual one-year limit, which could be extended by a court to no more than two years. Her stated reasons for the delay included the strain on her and her family while she was dealing with the controversy and the Disclosures Tribunal. She said she did not feel able to consider the claim until the tribunal’s public hearings ended in July 2018. She accepted she could have issued proceedings earlier. She had not sought legal advice about the proposed action until the tribunal was ending, and the newspaper was first notified of her intention to sue in September 2018.
The newspaper opposed the extension. It argued, among other things, that it had a good arguable defence and that the proposed case would involve disputes about whether the articles identified O’Sullivan and whether they were published in the public interest. It also pointed to her questioning at the tribunal about the publication. The judge said the newspaper had a good arguable defence but did not examine it in detail. She also said possible vindication through a tribunal report would not prevent O’Sullivan from seeking to bring proceedings.
The court found that O’Sullivan’s explanation was sincere but insufficient to justify disapplying the statutory time limit. It refused the application. The ruling decided only whether the deadline could be extended; it did not determine whether the articles were defamatory or the merits of the proposed claim.