The jury hearing the action by the Fianna Fail TD, Ms Beverley Cooper-Flynn, alleging libel against RTE was told yesterday to put out of their minds a segment of evidence the court was told last week.
A flooring contractor was to have given evidence of the sale of certain policies by Ms Cooper-Flynn. During cross-examination on Friday, Ms Cooper-Flynn said she had no memory of Mr Gary Skelton bringing cash and cheques to her office at National Irish Bank (NIB) for investment and issuing him with a receipt.
Counsel for RTE said on Friday that Mr Skelton, a witness subpoenaed by RTE, would say Ms Cooper-Flynn was aware the money was "hot" and had said the investment on offer was so sufficiently secure that she had sold it to her father, Mr Padraig Flynn.
Ms Cooper-Flynn said she could not recall having such a meeting with Mr Skelton at Harbourmaster Place and had certainly not said the product was so safe that she had sold one to her father. While she recalled dealing with Mr Skelton, she believed she only met him once, in the Donnybrook branch of NIB.
The Mayo Fianna Fail TD is suing RTE; journalist Mr Charlie Bird; and a retired farmer, Mr James Howard. The defendants deny Ms Cooper-Flynn was libelled in a series of RTE broadcasts in June-July 1998.
The TD claims words used in the broadcasts meant she had instigated a scheme whose object was the evasion of tax.
Following 90 minutes of submissions by lawyers in the absence of the jury, the President of the High Court, Mr Justice Morris, told the jury something of a hiatus had developed which he needed to put right.
He said RTE's defence was one of justification, made on the basis that Ms Cooper-Flynn sold products to, among others, Mr Howard, and that the particular policies were CMI Personal Portfolios and no other.
In those circumstances, he believed the defendants were required to mount any attack they had against Ms Cooper-Flynn on the sale by her only of those policies and they were not allowed to "stray at large" to any other policy she might have sold.
During resumed cross-examination yesterday, Ms Cooper-Flynn said a number of other companies were offering policies similar to CMI Personal Portfolios, and she would have put them to potential investors. The commission on CMI Personal Portfolios was 4.4 per cent.
She disagreed that that figure was extraordinarily high.
In addition to a trip to a conference in Australia in 1994, CMI had paid for a trip for her to Hawaii in 1993.
All five investment advisers, of whom she was one, went to Australia and three or four went to Hawaii.
Ms Cooper-Flynn said NIB was an investment adviser which sold CMI products. If a customer asked questions on tax, she would recommend they consult their tax adviser. She did not remember any adviser consulting her on the Personal Portfolios.
Mr Feeney said that in 199293 there was an awareness that substantial amounts had been kept in bogus non-resident accounts. Ms Cooper-Flynn said she became aware of that later. Asked if she accepted that the rate of return on an investment was most significant for an individual, she said she did not think it was.
In reply to Mr Feeney, Ms Cooper-Flynn said she knew a Mr Sean Roe. He had bought a CMI Personal Portfolio in excess of £100,000. She had met him in 1992 in the Shercock branch.
Asked if she had met him in a bank in Shercock and one time in a bus in Dublin, she said she met him in 1997. Asked if she was conducting a radio interview [on the bus], she said she may have taken a phone call while she was with him.
She did not recall discussing the tax amnesty with him. She was invited to meet Mr Roe to discuss a pension plan and investments. Counsel said Mr Roe would say he discussed the tax amnesty with Ms Cooper-Flynn and she told him the tax man would never get his hands on the investment if it was in CMI products. Ms Cooper-Flynn said this was not so. Asked if she was discouraging people from going into the tax amnesty, Ms Cooper-Flynn replied: "Absolutely not."
It did not happen that she had said to Mr Roe not to give away 15 per cent under the tax amnesty. It was true correspondence was sent c/o the bank. It was logical that documentation would come through the agents (NIB), she said.
The action continues today.