Ganley resolves Village injuction bid

LIBERTAS chairman Declan Ganley has resolved injunction proceedings against Village Magazine over an article which includes a quote from Minister Dick Roche describing Mr Ganley as a “snake-oil salesman”.

Mr Ganley also claimed the article contained other untrue and serious allegations which carried the meaning that he, through his conduct in telecommunications contracts in Iraq, is responsible, through corruption, for the deaths of many police officers and soldiers.

Mr Ganley said all of the allegations made were “totally and utterly untrue,” without foundation and were “a deliberate attempt at character assassination”.

Following publication of the article, entitled The Beginning of the End for Declan Ganley, in the magazine’s edition of February 6 last, Mr Ganley initiated libel proceedings against Ormond Quay Publishing Ltd, publishers of Village.

Prior to the hearing of the action, his counsel Peter Finlay SC applied yesterday for an interim injunction requiring all copies of Village to be removed from shops and the article to be removed from its website.

After talks between both sides, however, Mr Finlay told Mr Justice John MacMenamin the parties had come to a resolution of the differences between them and he was happy for Eoin McCullough SC, for the defendants, to read an agreed statement to the court and for the case to be adjourned for two weeks.

The statement said: “The Village Magazine strongly upholds its right to engage in vigorous investigation and comment on matters of public interest. Mr Ganley not only supports, but advocates, this right. The Village acknowledges that... it would have been preferable to have interviewed Mr Ganley before publishing serious allegations about him.

“It has now been afforded this opportunity and will in its next edition, record and publish accurately the answers given by Mr Ganley.”

The case was then adjourned for two weeks.

* Libertas will still run candidates in June’s European Parliament elections, despite questions over EU funding, Mr Ganley said.

Speaking on RTÉ’s Today With Pat Kenny he said that the application was only made “out of courtesy” to Brussels, and that regardless of any decision, the group will still run candidates. “We weren’t ever seeking to draw down funding Libertas was not entitled to get,” Mr Ganley said.