The High Court has granted leave to all sections of the print and broadcasting media in the State to publish the name of the crisis pregnancy counselling agency central to the unlawful custody of babies judgment delivered last week.
But Ms Justice McGuinness refused to allow any section of the media publish the names of the two principals of the agency or the name of the GP involved, or that of a barrister who had given legal advice to mothers through the agency.
She accepted undertakings from a number of parties not to publish names, addresses, geographical locations or any other information which might lead to the identification of the two babies involved in the proceedings, or their mothers or their families, and not to make any attempt to contact them.
Regarding those sections of the media which had not made an application to the court but who may now also publish the identity of the agency, Ms Justice McGuinness issued a mandatory order similarly banning publication of any other information and made it binding on all journalists and other personnel and bodies.
Ms Justice McGuinness said her colleague, Ms Justice Laffoy, who delivered the babies judgment and edited it for publication, would make a public statement in court at 11 a.m. this morning.
RTE had earlier sought leave not only to name the agency but for permission of the court to identify the doctor, the barrister and the agency's two principals. A number of piggy-back applications were made by TV3, 98FM, the Irish Mirror, the Irish Sun and Independent Newspapers, all of which indicated they wished to be granted the same relief as would be allowed RTE.
Ms Justice McGuinness said in her judgment yesterday she was very conscious that the application before the court raised questions of constitutional rights, their balancing and priority.
They had under consideration the right of freedom of expression, the right to have justice done in public and the right of infant children to be protected.
The case concerned the welfare of two infant children and they had to remember that at all times.
It had been heard in camera and Ms Justice Laffoy made an order limiting information in the publication of her approved judgment.
She had felt the evidence and information contained in the approved judgment should be made public because it was truly in the public interest.
Equally, Ms Justice Laffoy had limited the evidence and information in the interests of the welfare of the children and their mothers. She had no doubt that she had the power to do this.
Ms Justice McGuinness said that as she was not the trial judge and her knowledge of the matter was limited, she had at all times been reluctant to interfere with Ms Justice Laffoy's order except regarding the publication of the name of the agency, which she was convinced was in the public interest.
"I am conscious of the fact that a type of drip feed of further pieces of information tends to occur and I feel that was the type of thing Ms Justice Laffoy envisaged in using the term slippage.
"She was not referring to a deliberate or semi-deliberate attempt to commit contempt of court," Ms Justice McGuinness said.
She said she was conscious of the importance of the view of the Eastern Health Board regarding the welfare of the children and the protection of their interests, which was the board's statutory duty.
She could not necessarily be bound by the view of the Eastern Health Board regarding publication. She had to make her own decision.
She regarded the naming of individuals as raising slightly different considerations from the naming of the agency.
"If the individuals are identified publicly then, in the nature of the media coverage and in accordance with proper journalistic investigation which I certainly will not denigrate, efforts will be made to interview those individuals, perhaps by going to their house or place of work followed by publication either of those interviews or the refusal to give such interviews," she said.
Even in the print media this could lead to inadvertent disclosure by implication of further information from the in camera hearing, and this could lead to identification of the infants or mothers involved.
Ms Justice McGuinness refer red to the willingness of RTE to give an undertaking that live interviews would not take place to avoid situations where an interviewer could not control disclosures, and to phone-in programmes where she had experience of interviewers back-pedalling as fast as they could to avoid a libel action.
She did not think such programmes could be controlled or limited and it seemed to her that to widen the permission carried a high risk of slippage or drip feeding information, as had been envisaged by Ms Justice Laffoy.
She said it had been submitted by Mr Patrick Keane SC, for RTE, that it was in the public interest for the doctor and barrister to be named and that this would serve to protect in some way further pregnant girls. She did not see why this should be so.
It was clear from Ms Justice Laffoy's judgment that mothers had made contact with or were contacted by the doctor or barrister only through the medium of the agency.
"There is, it seems to me, no great danger that other pregnant women will make direct contact with them or be contacted by them. "It seems to me that in a sense it is public curiosity rather than public interest that will be served by identifying these people," she said.
One of the reasons she had permitted publication of the agency's name was so other pregnant women seeking counselling would have this information available to them.
She also felt it was important and genuinely in the public interest, and could protect other counselling agencies who felt their name was under a cloud.
Neither of these reasons applied in the naming of individuals, whether doctor, barrister or the two principals of the agency and she was unwilling to permit the naming of any of them.
"As far as the naming of the agency is concerned I gave an order to The Irish Times because that newspaper very properly made an application to the court in that regard and it was not an effort to help The Irish Times to gazump other members of the media," she said.
"It now appears to me it is only common sense to allow the general publication of the name of the agency and I would extend that to Irish Independent newspapers. That does not condone any contempt they may have committed, if they have committed it. That is something that has to be dealt with at the contempt hearing next week."
She was aware that the name of the barrister and proprietors of the agency had already been published by the Irish Independent but she felt things passed fairly quickly in the world of the media. If publication was not repeated and they were not investigated as individuals, the publicity attached to their names would die down fairly quickly.
She said the situation as now determined by her would stand until further order of the court.
Dr Michael Forde SC, with Mr Kieran Wood, appeared for the Aadams crisis pregnancy counselling agency; Mr Felix McEnroy SC, appeared for the Eastern Health Board; Ms Catherine Lucey-Neale appeared for the mother of Baby A; and Mr Stephen McCann appeared for the mother of Baby B. Mr Eoin McCullough appeared for Independent Newspapers Group.