Retired farmer Mr James Howard (69) is a "systematic fabricator of fables" designed to damage the reputation of the Fianna Fail TD Ms Beverley Cooper-Flynn, her counsel Mr Garrett Cooney SC told the High Court today.
Mr Cooney said Mr Howard had decided to "brazen-out" out his original story, which was broadcast on RTÉ in an interview with Mr Charlie Bird on June 28th, 1998.
Mr Howard, with an address in Wheaton Hall, Drogheda and formerly of Shercock, Co Cavan, denied the allegations, and also denied that in a second broadcast on July 1st, 1998, he re-iterated statements about Ms Cooper-Flynn despite knowing that they were untrue.
The second broadcast followed an article on June 29th by Mr Jody Corcoran, a journalist with the Sunday Independent, that suggested Mr Howard had never met Ms Cooper-Flynn.
Mr Howard, the High Court heard, alleged in both RTÉ interviews that Ms Cooper-Flynn had sold him an investment portfolio called CMI.
He also claims that she had advised him not to avail of the tax amnesty of the same year, and to leave undeclared money in the CMI scheme.
Ms Cooper-Flynn denies these allegations, claiming she never met Mr Howard and that the CMI product in question was sold to Mr Howard by a different employee of NIB, a Ms Patricia Roche.
Counsel for Ms Cooper-Flynn suggested that it was part of RTÉ’s strategy to deny that it was Ms Patricia Roche who sold the policy and that RTÉ had agreed to indemnify Mr Howard for the interviews if he maintained his stance in the interest of sustaining a case that, he says, RTE knew to be untrue.
Mr Howard has now finished giving his evidence.
Ms Cooper-Flynn is suing RTÉ journalist Mr Charlie Bird and Mr Howard. She claims she was libelled in broadcasts on RTÉ between June 19th 1998 and July 1st 1998 and words used on the programme claimed she had instigated a scheme, the object of which was the evasion of the lawful payment of tax.
The case continues on Tuesday