The High Court has refused Francis McGuinness’s application for a copy of the sworn information used to obtain a warrant to search his premises at Hillcrest, Cloghran, County Dublin, in August 2014.
In a ruling delivered on 28 October 2016, Mr Justice David Keane said he had examined the document after giving judgment on the application on 7 October. The State defendants had claimed that the document, or significant parts of it, was protected by informant privilege, public interest privilege relating to criminal investigations, or both.
The judge was satisfied that the document was material to an ongoing criminal investigation and that the range and detail of its contents could risk identifying one or more confidential informants. He concluded that both forms of privilege had been properly invoked.
The court considered whether parts of the document could be disclosed with redactions. It declined to do so. The judge referred to a general rule that documents material to an ongoing Garda investigation should not be required to be disclosed in civil proceedings. He also said it would be too difficult to redact the document to reveal meaningful information without risking the loss of the privilege.
The judge noted that the court had limited information to assess the risk in context. He said the risk included potential harm to an informant’s life and could not be lightly weighed.
The ruling concerns disclosure of the sworn information in the civil proceedings. The court refused the plaintiff’s application; the ruling does not state an outcome in the ongoing criminal investigation.