Reserved judgment in €900k damages case

A seven-judge Supreme Court has reserved judgment on a man’s appeal over orders overturning his €900,000 damages award for defamation and directing a rehearing.

Martin McDonagh appealed the Court of Appeal decision to quash as “perverse” a High Court jury’s finding the Sunday World had failed to prove he was a drug dealer and therefore libelled him in a 1999 article entitled ‘Traveller Drug King’.

That story arose after gardaí seized IR£500,000 of cannabis and amphetamines in August 1999, in Tubbercurry, Co Sligo. It was published on September 5, 1999, during Mr McDonagh’s seven-day detention for questioning in connection with that seizure.