Desmond fails in High Court bid

DERMOT DESMOND has failed in his High Court bid to restrain the Moriarty Tribunal from allowing reference to the 10-year-old Glackin Report, critical of his part in the purchase of the former Johnson Mooney and O’Brien site in Ballsbridge, Dublin.

The businessman had claimed that such repeated references were damaging to his reputation and good name and that the report was irrelevant to the tribunal’s investigation of decisions made in the mid-1990s relating to the award of a second GSM phonelicence to ESAT Digifone.

Mr Justice John Quirke, in a reserved judgment, found that the Glackin Report was relevant to the work of the tribunal and that the sole member, Judge Michael Moriarty, had not breached principals of natural justice or fair procedures in his dealings with Mr Desmond. Judge Quirke said the Glackin Report, published in 1993 after an investigation into ownership of Johnson Mooney and O’Brien property in Ballsbridge, had dealt with some of Mr Desmond’s former business dealings. He said the Glackin Report contained findings critical of Mr Desmond and his apparent association with two companies connected with the purchase of that property.