Lecturers ‘will not face action’

DISCIPLINARY action has been ruled out by a college against two lecturers who were defendants in a ground-breaking internet libel case.

Authorities at Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology (GMIT) said there will not be any disciplinary action against the two lecturers.

A lecturer in the college, Terry Casey, initiated libel proceedings against two colleagues and GMIT over email attachments circulated by them to other staff in January 2005.

Mr Casey, a lecturer in the marketing department at the college, took legal action against his department head, Larry Elwood, over the email which was circulated on January 25 in 2005 and re-circulated the following day by Deirdre Lusby, head of the business studies department.

The case was settled out of court on Friday, with the college issuing an apology to Mr Casey and agreed to pay a substantial sum in damages and costs, which were not disclosed.

GMIT said in a statement yesterday it wished to “clarify that the defamatory comments were not written by either Larry Elwood or Deirdre Lusby”, but were “contained in a student survey which was circulated by email to other staff members in error”.

“GMIT wishes to make clear that there is no question of any disciplinary action arising against either Larry Elwood or Deirdre Lusby,” the statement said.