Denny For Your Thoughts

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From top: Denis O’Brien; Former Fianna Fáil TD for Galway East Colm Keaveney outside Leinster House in 2014; Denis O’Brien

Readers will recall businessman Denis O’Brien’s case against Red Flag which allegedly compiled a dossier critical of Mr O’Brien.

It’s O’Brien’s case that the dossier both defames him and is evidence of a criminal conspiracy against him.

Last December former Fianna Fáil TD Colm Keaveney swore an affidavit favourable to Mr O’Brien’s case and named Declan Ganley as the person who commissioned Red Flag to compile the dossier.

Mr Ganley denies this is the case.

Mr O’Brien dropped a defamation case against Mr Keaveney after he suggested Mr Ganley commissioned the dossier.

And now…

Mr Keaveney’s affidavit has come under questioning after an affidavit by Mr Keaveney’s former parliamentary assistant Alan Hynes.

The Irish Times, reports:

Mr O’Brien’s counsel, Michael Cush SC, [yesterday] read several affidavits, including one by Alan Hynes. In it, Mr Hynes says Mr Keaveney told him that, in meeting “Denis O’Brien’s representative”, €250,000 was mentioned to him.

Mr Cush read from Mr Hynes’ affidavit: “Mr Keaveney informed me,” Mr Hynes swore, “that he agreed to co-operate with the Plaintiff [Mr O’Brien] as part of the settlement of the plaintiff’s defamation proceedings against him [Mr Keaveney]. I say and believe that this taints the veracity of the averments [assertions] sworn by Mr Keaveney in these proceedings in support of the plaintiff’s application to amend his pleadings.

“Mr Keaveney had initially indicated to me that the settlement offer was just a discussion but that he was minded to take it. A rough figure of €250,000 to settle the proceedings was mentioned to me by Mr Keaveney.

“At one stage Mr Keaveney told me that his response to Denis O’Brien’s representative had been ‘just tell me what he needs said and I’ll say it’.”

Affidavit claims former TD ‘was offered €250,000’ in Denis O’Brien case (Peter Murtagh, The Irish Times)

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27 thoughts on “Denny For Your Thoughts

      1. david

        Look up Clinton foundation and its charitable work after the disaster in Haiti
        Mobile phones bought from digicel owned by who?
        45 million dollars donated to build a 5 star hotel under the Marriot hotel group
        Owned by who?
        WikiLeaks leaked a few
        I suppose he still has legal teams keeping an eye on the worlds media looking for negative reports or comment threads
        And the sale of esat mobile phone company to vodaphone which no capital gains tax was forthcoming on millions upon millions profit
        Rumours are that 2 bidders who lost out to the esat awarding are still embroiled in a case against our country over the manner Mr digiphone got the licence with Lowry involvement
        I suppose someday this case might just get started and our country might just loose a legal case and millions in compensation

      1. realPolithicks

        That’s interesting, I didn’t know he was bankrupt. That certainly adds an interesting dimension to this.

  1. Andrew

    Colm Keaveney hasn’t much credibility, for many, many reasons not least this latest escapade.
    If redacted is relying on the likes of him then he is really scraping the barrel.
    The whole thing speaks volumes about the pair of them as if anyone didn’t know already.
    It could be an interesting case though if Keaveney starts to sing about the purported 250k. I would not like to be relying on him as my witness. Unpredictable.
    Redacted may walk away from this one.

    1. realPolithicks

      Lol, If I had that kind of money I can think of thousands of things I’d rather do with it.

  2. Cian

    Where did the 250K come from?

    O’Brien sued Keaveney for defamation.
    If O’Brien lost he may be ordered to pay Keaveney’s costs, but nothing else.

    So what was the 250K? was it to cover Keaveney’s lawyers?

  3. Cian

    And as an aside – are settlements taxable?

    If I gave Bodger[1] €500K, then this is taxable income to Bodger (apart for a small amount that is a tax-free ‘gift’).
    If I, instead I defamed Bodger. Then quickly said ‘sorry’ and settled for, say, €500K – is that taxable?

    [1] for example. Sorry Bodger – I’m not giving you half a mil

  4. Ron

    Keaveney was the biggest waste of space to ever grace Dail Eireann – Quite the achievement considering how many other wasters could vie for the prize… How he was ever elected is beyond me. Thankfully the electorate copped on to their awful mistake and removed him from office at the last GE… In years to come he will become a story of folklore where the people of Galway East will reminisce in the pubs. It will go something like – ‘Hey, remember the time we all went off our heads and elected Colm Keaveney to Dail Eireann and it wasn’t until we sobered up that we realised what we did! What were we thinking! lol Crazy!’…

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