MR Proinsias De Rossa said that to associate him with prostitution and drug dealing was sick and was a deliberate attempt to destroy him. He was describing his reaction when he first read the Sunday Independent article in 1992 and said he was "stunned" by what it said in the first few paragraphs.
Mr De Rossa said he got a telephone call from a friend at 10 a.m. on the Sunday morning of December 13th, 1992, asking if he had seen the article. The friend said he should see it. He went to the local newsagents to buy a copy. The article was on the back page and the title did not look to him that it was particularly nasty.
When he got home and started to read it, he was stunned by what it said in the first few paragraphs. "I couldn't understand why he would say those things about me and why he had adopted such a personal and grossly damaging view," he said.
Mr Paul O'Higgins SC, for Mr De Rossa, asked him if the phrase "special activities" used in the article at any time emanated from him. Mr De Rossa said: "No, I never did, no. I never used the phrase special activities".
He said that he had no knowledge whatsoever of special activities. "When I read the article one of the things that upset me most was the fact that if this were let stand I would never be able to defend myself again as an honest person and my family would be ashamed to associate themselves with me.
What would they say to their friends and neighbours and the people they worked with if such things were said about their father For brother? It was damaging.
Here was a man (Mr Dunphy) and the Sunday Independent saying he was not fit to be part of the Government of this State.
Mr O'Higgins quoted part of the article which referred to "special activities" including armed robberies and forgery of currency. Mr De Rossa said that he was totally opposed to any kind of violence whatsoever. He was totally opposed to any illegality. It was quite clear all through his political career. He had faced down the IRA and Sinn Fein in the mid1980s in his own constituency when they were trying to prevent gardai from operating according to the law.
Mr De Rossa said that we did not have a democratic society if we did not have a law based society. He could not accept that that kind of "special activity" had been associated with him.
Mr O'Higgins then asked him how he felt about being linked in the article with drugs, prostitution and protection rackets.
"Perhaps if one could be more hurt by being linked to armed robberies, to associate me with prostitution and drugs dealing and all that kind of stuff was sick as far as I was concerned and it was a deliberate attempt to destroy me," Mr De Rossa said.
Asked what effect the allegations of him being associated with drugs would have in his constituency, he replied it would have been extremely bad. The fact was that in most urban constituencies there was then and now a drug problem. To be associated with drug dealing of any kind, would be political suicide.
Mr O'Higgins asked about the allegations relating to prostitution. "It's so outrageous, it beggars' belief that the man could put that kind of thing in print, or that the Sunday Independent could allow it to be put in print. It's just impossible to accept it."
Mr O'Higgins said a paragraph in the article said that there was evidence, strengthened by revelations in The Irish Times that Mr De Rossa was aware of what was going on. He asked if Mr De Rossa was aware.
Mr De Rossa replied that he was not. That particular paragraph seemed to be an attempt to justify the blatant and clear allegation he (Mr Dunphy) was making earlier on. It was totally inadequate. It seemed possibly a lawyer might have advised him to do that to try to soften allegations that he (Mr De Rossa) was involved but it was not acceptable to him as justifying what he (Mr Dunphy) wrote.
Mr O'Higgins asked how he felt about the view in the article that he had somehow been a recent convert to decency. Mr De Rossa said: "I always considered myself a decent person, although I was never in any sense a saint." He always considered the people in Democratic Left were decent.
Referring to a phrase in the article "if one is to allow him (Mr De Rossa) the benefit of the doubt", Mr De Rossa said he was not a criminal and had never been associated with any criminal.
"The idea that I should be given the benefit of the doubt made me furious. O.J. Simpson got off on the benefit of the doubt but nobody believed he was innocent. I am innocent. I am not a criminal," Mr De Rossa told the court.
When asked about a reference in the article to his "political friends in the Soviet Union were no better than gangsters", Mr De Rossa said he had no particular friends there. He visited the Soviet Union in 1986 and any association he had was to persuade them not to support the IRA. He considered his party had some influence in that regard particularly in 1987 after the Enniskillen bombing, when they changed their position.
When he visited the Soviet Union, he was deeply unimpressed. He had a vision of the country before he went that people had a high level of freedom but the people he saw in the streets were sullen and unhappy. It certainly was not the image he had of what it might be like.
Mr O'Higgins asked him about other references to labour camps, anti Semitism and the persecution of men like Andre Sakharov and Vaclav Havel and the link made with Mr De Rossa.
Mr De Rossa replied that the allegations had no basis in fact in terms of any association with them. He had never supported anything like that.
Asked what effect the article had had, Mr De Rossa replied that it hurt him very deeply not only for himself but for everybody else associated with him. His children could not walk the streets without being pointed out as children of somebody associated with prostitution, drugs, heinous crimes. His friends had been tainted with the allegations.
He had asked the Sunday Independent to withdraw it, apologise for it and give money to charity but the newspaper refused.
The Sunday Independent now did not even pretend he had anything to do with that kind of thing but it would still not apologise.
If the article were true, he would not be a person suitable to be a member of the Government. If it were true, he should be before the courts and imprisoned.
"The effect is so appallingly and blatantly false. It just beggars belief that a person could deliberately write down and that a newspaper could publish that I should not be part of a Government. It is disgusting and disgraceful."