Ryanair claims Channel 4 and a production company behind an allegedly defamatory TV programme about the airline cannot claim journalistic privilege over sources for information in the broadcast.

A judge has been asked by State-owned IBRC to direct that the Quinn family’s action aimed at avoiding liability for €2.34bn loans should open as soon as possible this year.

IBRC is seeking to “grind down” the family of bankrupt businessman Sean Quinn in the long-running litigation between the sides so as to make the family bankrupt and unable to pursue their case against the bank, it has been claimed before the High Court.

A former Ryanair pilot, who once wrote a letter to the Financial Times claiming the airline’s chief executive, Michael O’Leary, should be replaced by a junior to reduce costs, claims he would still be working for the company if it had not been “completely unreasonable”.

The family of bankrupt businessman Seán Quinn plans to sue the former Anglo Irish Bank CEO David Drumm and 10 other former Anglo directors.

The IBRC Act appears to give no power to the courts to lift the new statutory stay in the act halting all existing proceedings against Irish Bank Resolution Corporation, formerly Anglo Irish Bank, a High Court judge said yesterday.

Some members of the family of bankrupt businessman Seán Quinn may be called to give evidence for the prosecution in the criminal trials of former Anglo Irish Bank chairman Sean FitzPatrick and two former executives of the bank, Willie McAteer and Pat Whelan.

Seán Quinn Jr, the son of jailed businessman Seán Quinn, is prepared to sell the home he shares with his wife in a bid to purge his contempt of court, the High Court heard yesterday.

Ryanair has asked a High Court judge, Mr Justice Peter Kelly, not to hear an action by the airline on grounds of comments by the judge that Ryanair and the truth are "uncomfortable bedfellows".

RYANAIR boss Michael O’Leary has apologised for wrongly describing a trade union officer on a TV programme as a “failed Aer Lingus pilot”, as part of a High Court settlement of a defamation action.

THE High Court was yesterday asked to dismiss a challenge by Ryanair to the planning permission for a second terminal at Dublin Airport.

A DISPUTE between two men involved in the relaunch last summer of a landmark Dublin dancehall, the Ierne Ballroom, has been settled at the High Court.