RTE libel bill tops €1.5m

By Justine Mccarthy
Sunday Times
July 05, 2015

http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/news/ireland/News/article1577076.ece?CMP=OTH-gnws-standard-2015_07_04

RTE’S Mission to Prey programme has now cost the state-owned broadcaster more than €1.5m in libel damages, legal costs, and penalties.

The bill does not include payments to the station’s own lawyers, witness expenses, or costs incurred by four separate inquiries resulting from the programme broadcast in 2011.

Last Thursday, the broadcaster settled a second High Court defamation case arising from the Prime Time Investigates programme at a cost of €338,000, including VAT.

The libel suit was taken by Richard Burke, a former Catholic archbishop from Co Tipperary, who claimed he was wrongly depicted as a child sex abuser in the programme.

The case was settled as the seventh day of the trial was about to commence, following legal argument in the jury’s absence.