Court orders journalists to pay costs of row with tribunal

Two Irish Times journalists have been ordered to pay all of the costs of their legal row with the Mahon Tribunal, despite winning their case.

The Supreme Court ruled last July that editor Geraldine Kennedy and correspondent Colm Keena should not be compelled to answer the inquiry's questions about the source of an article in 2006 on payments to Bertie Ahern.

However the court has today decided that because of exceptional circumstances they must pay both sides' legal bill because of their "reprehensible misconduct in destroying documentation that may have identified where the leak came from".