Sligo man to repay €90k award in newspaper libel action

A man who was paid a tenth of a €900,000 High Court award against a newspaper must return the money, the Court of the Appeal has ruled.

However, the court put a stay on its order, and on separate orders in relation to legal costs, in the event that Martin McDonagh is successful in asking the Supreme Court to consider an entirely new appeal against the decision overturning the €900,000 award.

Last month, on behalf of the three-judge appeal court, Mr Justice Gerard Hogan described as perverse a High Court jury’s 2008 decision to award €900,000 to Mr McDonagh after it found he had been libelled in a Sunday World article entitled “Traveller Drug King”.

The story followed the seizure by gardaí of £500,000 worth of cannabis and amphetamines in August, 1999, in Tubbercurry, Co Sligo.

Mr Justice Hogan said the evidence overwhelmingly pointed to the conclusion that Mr McDonagh, of Cranmore Drive, Sligo, “was, indeed, a drug dealer associated with the drugs seizure in Tubercurry”.

Following the award in 2008, the High Court put a stay on it the full payment pending appeal — on condition that €90,000 was paid over by the Sunday World.

In overturning the award, the appeal court also ordered there should be a re-trial of a second allegation of loan-sharking which the jury had also found in Mr McDonagh’s favour.

The matter of costs and repayment of the €90,000 came before the Court of Appeal yesterday.

Eoin McCullough, counsel for Sunday Newspapers Ltd, publishers of the Sunday World, asked for an order that the €90,000 be returned, that his client be awarded all of the appeal court costs, as well as most of the High Court costs because a large part of the libel trial centred on the drug dealing claim which was overturned.

Declan Doyle, counsel for Mr McDonagh, said while he could not say much about the appeal court costs, he asked that the question of the High Court costs be remitted to the the High Court.

The repayment of the €90,000 was a matter to be dealt with when the question of a stay on the appeal court order was being decided, counsel said.

After rising, the court returned to say it was granting the newspaper appeal court costs, the repayment order it sought, and two-thirds of the High Court costs.