O’Reilly denies taping phone call

INDEPENDENT News and Media (INM) chief executive Gavin O’Reilly has been accused of “mad behaviour”, allegedly taping a heated telephone conversation with Denis O’Brien.

Mr O’Brien’s spokesman James Morrissey said he believes Mr O’Reilly taped and “selectively leaked” a phone conversation with Mr O’Brien almost two weeks ago regarding the performance of the company.

Details of the conversation emerged over the weekend and Mr O’Brien, who was speaking from Ibiza, Spain, at the time of the call, is believed to have said he is up for a “fight” if Mr O’Reilly wanted one. INM is believed to have prepared a note on the call.

However, Mr Morrissey said he was told the conversation was taped. He went on to say suchbehaviour was “lunacy”, adding that “you don’t tape telephone conversations”.

An INM spokesman, however, said the claims were “categorically untrue”.

He said: “Given the serious threats made by Denis O’Brien on that call, contemporaneous notes of the call were taken by Gavin O’Reilly. It was those contemporaneous notes, and not a recording, that formed the basis of a subsequent file note of the conversation.”

Mr Morrissey said Mr O’Brien did not tape the conversation.

Last week saw the renewal of hostilities between the O’Reilly family and Mr O’Brien, over the best way to deal with the debt and the restructuring of the group.

Mr Morrissey – on RTÉ’s Marian Finucane show – also criticised the INM board, adding that the “difficulties at Independent News and Media manifested themselves long before the economic downturn”.

He said the newspaper group has “never made a profit” and said Gavin O’Reilly and his father have promised to deliver a profit every year since they took over control of the board.

Mr Morrissey also said he was “not rubbing salt in the wounds” by making reference to the millions lost by Tony O’Reilly as a result of his investment in Waterford Wedgwood.

Mr O’Brien is “frustrated” and “annoyed” that the board has not taken tough decisions, according to Mr Morrissey.

Meanwhile, INM has held talks with Axel Springer over the German publisher possibly becoming its biggest shareholder, the Sunday Times reported, not saying where it obtained the information.

The talks concerned Axel Springer backing a rights offer that would dilute the stakes of Independent News, Mr O’Brien and Anthony O’Reilly, who hold 26% and 28% respectively of the company, the newspaper said.

The discussions failed due to differences over valuation, according to the Sunday Times.