The High Court has refused Martin Foley’s application for an interlocutory injunction that would have restrained Sunday Newspapers Limited from publishing material about him, including allegations that he acted as a Garda informer. The court directed an early trial of the action and said it would hear counsel on accelerated pleadings and the trial date.
Mr Justice Kelly delivered judgment on 28 January 2005, after hearing the application on 18 and 19 January. The action began with a plenary summons issued on 16 December 2004. The application sought to prevent publication of material said to encourage harm to Mr Foley, suggest he was an informer, or interfere with his constitutional rights to life, privacy and bodily integrity.
The dispute arose from a 5 December 2004 Sunday World article, part of a serialisation of crime editor Paul Williams’s book “Crime Lords Update”. The article included a headline, “Foley’s a Dead Man Walking”, and passages predicting he would not die in his sleep, alleging payments to Sinn Féin, and claiming he passed information about other drug dealers to a senior Garda member. Mr Foley’s solicitor said the informer allegation was unfounded and could put his life at risk. The newspaper stood over its reporting.
The judge assumed, without deciding, that Mr Foley had raised an issue for trial and that damages might be inadequate if his life were endangered. But he found the evidence insufficient to justify restricting publication before trial. He noted that the material contained statements of fact or opinion, with no express exhortation or encouragement to harm Mr Foley, and no evidence that the newspaper intended to make such an appeal.
The judgment also distinguished between older material and the new informer allegation. The court observed that the first two complaints concerned material already published in 2003 and April 2004, without proceedings having been brought at the time. The informer allegation was new, so the judge said delay did not apply to that complaint. The court nevertheless concluded that the evidence as a whole did not support the injunction sought.
The judge also found the proposed order too wide, saying it would make it difficult for the newspaper to know what it could publish. He said the information was already in the public domain and that the proceedings had increased its circulation. The refusal concerns interim relief; the substantive action remained for trial.