Date set for editor’s appeal over tribunal order

A FIVE-JUDGE Supreme Court will hear on December 8 the appeal by Irish Times editor Geraldine Kennedy and public affairs correspondent Colm Keena against a High Court order requiring them to answer questions from the Mahon tribunal.

The tribunal wants to ask questions relating to the source of an article about financial payments to former taoiseach Bertie Ahern when he was minister for finance in 1993. A stay on the High Court order permitting the questioning remains in place pending the outcome of the appeal.

When the appeal was briefly mentioned yesterday, Eoin McGonigal SC, for Ms Kennedy and Mr Keena, told the chief justice, Mr Justice John Murray, his side’s papers had all been lodged and the only matter outstanding was a book, to be agreed by both sides, of the relevant legal authorities.