Developer was ‘shocked’ at Creighton comments

Developer Michael O’Flynn told the High Court he was shocked when he heard a radio interview two years ago in which Fine Gael TD Lucinda Creighton referred to him when talking about low standards in public life.

Cork-based Mr O’Flynn, 55, said he had never done anything in his life to bring down standards anywhere, and to this day he took exception to the remarks made by the now European Affairs minister.

“I have absolutely never done anything to bring low standards anywhere. I took exception to it and several times since and took exception to it again today,” he said, telling Mr Justice Eamon deValera and a jury he was shocked to be attacked in such a public way.

“I am not a public figure, I am a man going about my business and I do not need to be used as a pawn in a political issue. I treasure my reputation and I always have, and you don’t attack people in that way and try to stand it up for your own gains.”

He was giving evidence on the first day of his defamation action for damages against the minister arising out of a speech she gave to the MacGill Summer School on Jul 20, 2010, on the subject of “standards in public life and accountability”, in which she said, among other things, that there can be no room in her party for “cute hoor politics”.

She said Fine Gael in government must be “much more than Fianna Fáil-lite” and could not condemn Fianna Fáil for entertaining developers in the Galway Races tent while also extending the “biscuit tin for contributions from high-profile developers who are beholden to Nama”.

Mr O’Flynn says that, in an interview she gave the same day to RTÉ Radio’s News at One, she then went on to mention the fact that Mr O’Flynn had supported a Fine Gael fundraising golf classic a few days earlier in the K Club when he was one of the top 10 indebted developers to Nama. He says she made further defamatory comments in an interview a couple of days later with The Irish Times.

He says she caused those defamatory words to be published which meant, among other things, that he was not upstanding, that Irish life had been tainted by him, that he was responsible for low standards in public office, and that he had received large sums of money from Irish taxpayers through the Nama process.

Ms Creighton denies the words were defamatory and says they were statements of an opinion honestly held. She claims a defence of fair and reasonable publication and denies that Mr O’Flynn’s reputation has been damaged or that he has been brought into odium, ridicule, or contempt as a result.

Mr O’Flynn, a married father of four, is chairman and managing director of the O’Flynn Group of companies which, the court heard, at its height, employed about 1,000 people involved in retail, commercial, industrial and residential development. It now employs about 200, mainly in Ireland, Britain, and mainland Europe.

When Nama was set up by the previous government, some of his companies’ loans were transferred to the agency which, he said, he “had no say over whatsoever”.

He co-operated fully with Nama and was in the final stages of the process, he told his counsel, Declan Doyle SC. All his companies were trading, he said. He was heavily involved in activities outside work, including fundraising for UCC and Crumlin Children’s Hospital.

While he had never engaged in political activity, he was a supporter of democracy and had supported “all parties bar one”. He responded to requests for support from parties rather than him approaching them. “I never supported a party to get something,” he said.

He was approached by the national office of Fine Gael to support the K Club golf classic in Jul 2010, and paid €1,500 to be part of a team which included his local Fine Gael TD, Michael Creed, and GAA manager Mick O’Dwyer. Taoiseach Enda Kenny, who was opposition leader at the time, and Phil Hogan TD were on other teams at the event, the court heard.

When he heard Ms Creighton’s interview on the radio, he was “absolutely shocked” because it was suggesting his presence there had brought low standards.

Ms Creighton’s comments had impacted not just him, but on his wife and four grown children and his siblings.

“I do not want them feeling I did something wrong. I was deeply offended and hurt over what was thrown at me.”

The hearing continues.