RTÉ journalist Mr Charlie Bird today denied in the High Court he targeted Ms Beverley Cooper-Flynn and that he intentionally broadcast pieces of interviews selected to do most to damage her reputation.
Ms Cooper-Flynn claims she was libelled in radio and television broadcasts on RTÉ in 1998 in which the words used implied she had instigated a scheme intended as a means to evade the lawful payment of tax.
Mr Garrett Cooney SC, for Ms Cooper-Flynn, put it to Mr Bird that during an investigation in January 1998 into NIB and its investment portfolio CMI, Ms Cooper-Flynn’s name had come to his attention and that since then he had been targeting her.
The allegations, based on Mr Bird's investigations, were finally broadcast on June 19th, 1998, and July 1st, 1998, in two news items that Ms Cooper-Flynn claims are libellous.
Mr Cooney SC also claimed anonymous allegations in a letter from an unknown source were used by Mr Bird to put the allegations to Ms Cooper-Flynn and to her father, Mr Padraig Flynn, the then EU commissioner for social affairs, in letters to both on the day before the first broadcast.
Describing the act of putting allegations based on an anonymous letter as "reprehensible" and "sleazy in the extreme", Mr Cooney added that the only reason Mr Bird had pursued Ms Cooper-Flynn was because she was a TD and, at the time, a member of the Oireachtas Committee on Public Finance.
"I put it to you Mr Bird that you targeted her and selected her because she was a TD and that she would be a big scalp in your belt," Mr Cooney said.
He also suggested an advertisement Mr Bird had placed in the Cavan-based Anglo-Celtnewspaper looking for information from people who had invested in the CMI scheme was really looking for information on Ms Cooper-Flynn's involvement in selling them.
Despite contacts from other people who had invested in the scheme on the advice of Ms Cooper-Flynn, Mr Cooney said, little of their evidence was used in the broadcast as it was not as strong as the evidence from Mr Bird’s principal witness, Mr James Howard, formerly of Shercock, Co Cavan.
Mr Bird denies targeting Ms Cooper-Flynn and earlier today said he did not think the allegations about the sale of the CMI product would seriously damage her reputation.
During the course of the investigation into the CMI scheme, he said, he had "done his damnedest to communicate with Ms Cooper-Flynn" and that she had every opportunity to reply to the allegations that were being made against her.
He said he only questioned Mr Howard in the interview in the way he did to ensure Mr Howard had absolutely no doubts about allegations he was making against Ms Cooper-Flynn and that he was not putting leading questions to Mr Howard.
Mr Howard alleges Ms Cooper-Flynn sold him an NIB investment portfolio in 1993 and had advised him not to avail of the tax amnesty of the same year but, instead, to invest the undeclared money in the portfolio.
Mr Bird also said he only became aware that Ms Cooper-Flynn was claiming another NIB employee, Ms Patricia Roche, sold the investment portfolio to Mr Howard in a solicitor's letter from Ms Cooper-Flynn to RTÉ after the second broadcast.
He said he had no knowledge of Ms Roche in relation to the CMI portfolio before the broadcast and would have included this information in the broadcasts if he had known about it.
Mr Bird also told the court that had Ms Cooper-Flynn approached him or RTÉ with a different version of events he would have broadcast that too.
He also gave Mr Howard a chance to withdraw his allegations. "If he was in any way changing his story it was incumbent on us to reflect that," said Mr Bird.
"But that is not the case. If it had been we would have given it the same prominence as the original allegations."
Mr Bird continues giving evidence tomorrow.