COMMUNICATIONS consultant Monica Leech has secured damages understood to be about €125,000 plus costs and an apology in settlement of her High Court libel action over two newspaper articles.
Ms Leech, of Otteran Place, South Parade, Waterford, had sued Associated Newspapers and journalist Frank Connolly over articles published in November and December 2004 in two of the group's titles, the Irish Mail on Sundayand the Daily Mail.
The action was listed for hearing before Mr Justice Eamon de Valera and a jury in the High Court yesterday but, when the case was called, Paul O'Higgins SC, for Ms Leech, said the matter had been settled on terms agreed between the parties.
Those terms included an apology read in court by Cian Ferriter, for Associated Newspapers.
It stated: "In November and December 2004, we published a number of articles suggesting that Monica Leech was having an extra-marital affair with Minister Martin Cullen.
"This allegation was entirely false.
"The suggestion that Mrs Leech had secured valuable contracts on the basis of such an affair was equally false.
"We apologise sincerely to Mrs Leech and her family for the pain and distress caused to them and have agreed to pay a sum of money in compensation and to discharge her legal costs."
In her statement of claim, Ms Leech had said that while trading as Monica Leech Communications, she was granted a six-month contract as a consultant to the Department of the Environment and Local Government in July 2002 at a rate of €650 per day, having submitted a tender at that rate.
In 2003, her company was granted a two-year contract as consultant to the Department of the Environment at a rate of €800 per day, she also said.
In November/December 2004 and the early months of 2005, she was the subject of prominent and sustained media coverage by the defendants and by numerous other media organs.
Monica Leech: articles examples of 'gutter journalism'
MONICA LEECH said the articles which led to her High Court libel action were examples of "gutter journalism" that perpetuated a common sexist slur without any basis in fact.
"This type of gutter journalism really just repeats the sort of stereotypical female sexist sort of perceptions that are out there and . . . I'm glad to get the opportunity to absolutely make the point that anything that I achieved, I achieved on merit."
Ms Leech said when the newspaper initially contacted her with the allegations, she told the journalist they were false.
"Almost four years [ago] to the day, I initially took the call from journalist Frank Connolly and answered his questions and indeed told him categorically that his allegations were totally untrue.
"He obviously then could not stand up those allegations simply because they are not true. Like most things in life I suppose, the truth will out in the end."
The experience had been very difficult for her husband and their two sons, Ms Leech added.
"We have had a tremendous amount of support. There's a saying: you can either curse the darkness or shine a light. I choose to use this opportunity to shine a light and open a debate on the sensational gutter journalism and how it actually demeans all of our lives."