Legal proceedings involving Independent TD Beverley Flynn were struck out at the High Court yesterday, bringing to an end a long-running legal battle arising from her failed libel action against RTÉ.
Ms Justice Elizabeth Dunne struck out constitutional and bankruptcy proceedings involving Ms Flynn. The move came after the TD finally paid a €1.225 million legal bill with RTÉ last August.
Mr Douglas Clarke, for the State, told Ms Justice Dunne that the constitutional proceedings - a challenge to the Bankruptcy Act initiated by Ms Flynn but subsequently abandoned - could be struck out and an order for costs made in favour of the State. The judge made the order.
Ms Flynn's aborted proceedings challenged the constitutionality of the laws under which an undischarged bankrupt cannot be a member of the Dáil.
Tony Leggit, solicitor with Eugene F Collins for RTÉ, also applied yesterday for bankruptcy proceedings against Ms Flynn to be struck out with no order for costs and the judge made that order also.
Beverley Flynn was expelled from Fianna Fáil in 2004 after a failed libel action against RTÉ. She lost a 28-day High Court action against RTÉ, its chief news correspondent Charlie Bird and farmer James Howard in relation to claims that she assisted clients of National Irish Bank, for which she had worked, to evade tax.
The settlement of €1.225 million, which was less than half of the actual €2.8 million bill, was accepted by a bankruptcy court in early July.
RTÉ had brought the bankruptcy proceedings against Ms Flynn over her failure to pay any of the legal costs arising from her unsuccessful libel action.
RTÉ alleged Ms Flynn had failed to pay any of the total bill of €2,848,088 which, it contended, was due arising from the libel action of 2001.
Ms Flynn, then a Fianna Fáil TD but now an Independent, lost her 28-day High Court action against RTÉ, Bird and farmer James Howard and also failed in her appeal to the Supreme Court against that decision. That appeal was dismissed in 2004.
Both courts awarded costs against Ms Flynn which costs were certified in September 2005 by the High Court Taxing Master.
Ms Flynn, a former financial adviser with National Irish Bank, had alleged she was libelled in six RTÉ broadcasts in 1998 which reported that, as an employee of NIB, she had encouraged or assisted a number of persons in tax evasion.