Creighton apologises in High Court to O’Flynn

European Affairs Minister Lucinda Creighton has apologised in the High Court to Cork-based property developer Michael O’Flynn and described him as an upstanding developer.

“I am happy to confirm Michael O’Flynn is an upstanding developer and person who operates his business to the highest standards. He has not done any wrong and any suggestion to the contrary was not intended by me,” Ms Creighton said in the apology, which was read out in court as part of the settlement of Mr O’Flynn’s defamation action against the minister.

As the case was to resume for the third day yesterday, Declan Doyle, counsel for Mr O’Flynn, told Mr Justice Eamon de Valera and a jury it had been settled overnight and a statement would be read out on Ms Creighton’s behalf by Paul O’Higgins.

In it, Ms Creighton said she made comments during her speech and subsequently to the radio and The Irish Times about Mr O’Flynn’s attendance at a golf classic, in particular concerning low standards and wrongdoing.

She apologised to him and his family for any hurt and distress caused by her comments and had also agreed to pay a contribution towards his legal costs.

Ms Creighton and Mr O’Flynn also shook hands in the court.

The case arose out of a speech on standards in public life given in Jul 2010 at the MacGill Summer School by Ms Creighton, when she was a Fine Gael backbencher.

He claimed she had defamed him in the speech in which she said, among other things, that there can be no room in Fine Gael for “cute-hoor politics”.

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

Later, on RTÉ radio, she expressed unhappiness that Mr O’Flynn had financially supported a Fine Gael fundraising golf classic a few days earlier at a time when he was one of the top 10 indebted developers to Nama.

Ms Creighton denied his claims and said it was an opinion honestly held.

Outside court, Mr Flynn read a prepared statement in which he said he was “very happy” the damage caused to his reputation caused by her “very public comments” had been “recognised by these court proceedings”.

From day one, he said, all he had sought was an appropriate apology and a donation to the Crumlin Children’s Hospital Foundation “in recognition of her inappropriate comments about me”. He was glad she had agreed to make “a substantial contribution to my legal costs, part of which I will donate to Crumlin”.

Speaking afterwards, Ms Creighton said she was really pleased they had managed to settle the dispute.