The Supreme Court has dismissed two appeals by Raidió Teilifís Éireann (RTE) and upheld orders requiring it to disclose recordings of a programme shown to parents at a Malahide crèche before the programme was broadcast nationally.
The appeals were brought in defamation actions by Lisa Craddock and Sandra Kavanagh, who worked at Links Crèche at Abbington, Malahide. They claim that RTE’s programme “A Breach of Trust”, broadcast on 28 May 2013, depicted them as responsible for mistreating children. Those are allegations in pending proceedings; the Court expressed no view on whether any material was defamatory.
The plaintiffs had issued plenary summonses but had not yet delivered statements of claim. They said they could not accurately plead their cases without seeing what RTE had shown to parents. The High Court ordered discovery of recordings and transcripts of those showings, as well as the nationally broadcast programme. RTE appealed. The parties agreed that the appeals could be heard with motions seeking a stay of the orders.
The Supreme Court said discovery before pleadings are closed is unusual and generally requires exceptional circumstances. It noted that the plaintiffs had no means of knowing which version of the programme had been shown to parents, and that RTE had not provided an affidavit in response to their evidence in the High Court. The judgment also referred to differences between versions: Kavanagh did not appear in the programme broadcast nationally, and RTE had said in correspondence that additional footage featuring Craddock was shown to a wider group of parents before transmission.
The Court found the circumstances sufficiently exceptional to justify early discovery of the recordings shown to parents. It said that preparing a clear pleading about alleged defamation in audio and visual material was different from pleading a claim based on a written text when the plaintiffs’ legal advisers had not seen the relevant recording.
The appeals were dismissed, upholding the High Court’s order for recordings shown to parents. The parties had agreed to provide copies of the programme as broadcast, so the Supreme Court said it did not need to address that part of the High Court order and expressed no view on its correctness. The ruling concerns access to material before statements of claim; it does not decide the defamation actions.