Former Irish Planning Institute executive director tells court the 'Irish Examiner' defamed her

Orla Purcell told the High Court: 'So much of what they wrote was untrue that I feel I am unemployable, so long as [the Irish Examiner articles] remain online'

Orla Purcell's defamation case against the 'Irish Examiner' relates to two articles by Mick Clifford. She said she found the discovery that a subordinate 'hated' her 'very upsetting'. Picture: Collins Courts

A former lead executive at the Irish Planning Institute (IPI) has described as “very upsetting” the discovery that a subordinate “hated” her, in a defamation action she has taken against the Irish Examiner.

Orla Purcell, former executive director of the IPI, told the first day of the High Court trial that the policy administrator at the IPI, Michelle Ball, had informed another employee by text “how much she hated” Ms Purcell.

Ms Ball included the text correspondence in an official complaint against Ms Purcell, lodged with the IPI’s then president Conor Norton, which was treated as a protected disclosure. Ms Purcell said: 

She had photographed these text messages and enclosed them in her complaint. They were very upsetting. She described how much she hated me. 

Ms Purcell told the High Court she had been accused of “illegal lobbying” after she met the president of the Construction Industry Federation Tom Parlon to discuss “how under-resourced the planning system was”. 

Ms Purcell said the nature of that meeting meant that it had not been necessary to disclose it via Ireland’s official lobbying register.

Two articles by Mick Clifford 

Ms Purcell’s case concerns two articles written by journalist Mick Clifford, and published in the Irish Examiner in January 2023, concerning a leaked report by consultants EY, which had investigated the circumstances surrounding the complaint against Ms Purcell and her subsequent suspension from her duties.

Irish Examiner Editor John O'Mahony and Special Correspondent Mick Clifford leaving the Four Courts on Tuesday where they are defending the defamation case brought by former IPI executive director Orla Purcell. Picture: Collins Courts

In her action, Ms Purcell has claimed that the allegations made in the confidential EY report were presented as fact in the published articles, and that they damaged her reputation in that they alleged she had been found “guilty” of serious misconduct. 

With regard to the accusation of illegal lobbying, she said that EY had “agreed with the law” that no such lobbying had taken place. 

'Irish Examiner' denies allegations

The Irish Examiner has denied the allegations, and has claimed the articles were published in the public interest, and comprised fair and reasonable publication.

Ms Purcell left the IPI having taken voluntary redundancy in November 2022. A disciplinary process against her was discontinued following her exit.

She told the jury of six men and six women at the High Court that the loss of her employment at the IPI had been “pretty devastating”.

“So much of what they wrote was untrue that I feel I am unemployable, so long as they [the Irish Examiner articles] remain online,” she said.

'Too scared to apply for a new job'

“I’m too scared to apply for a new job and have to explain all this to a potential new employer,” she said.

She said the nature of a non-disclosure agreement she entered into with the IPI means she isn’t in a position to “explain to any potential employer what was done to me”.

Ms Purcell said she had been paid €60,000 as part of her voluntary redundancy package, but had offered to return €5,000 to the institute “as a gesture of goodwill”, which could have been used as a “bursary for a young planner to attend a course”.

She said that she had been denied an application for carers’ leave to care for her dying mother for two months by Conor Norton while she was suspended. 

She claimed Mr Norton had had an overarching relationship with Ms Ball at the time of her complaint, as he had been her thesis supervisor at the Technical University of Dublin.

She said that a separate action against the IPI for breach of her confidence over the leaking of the EY report had been settled last week, and that the IPI’s current president Mary McMahon had previously sent her a personal letter of apology.

The case continues before Justice Tony O’Connor.