An Irish Times journalist, Margaret E. Ward, has won the Law Society Justice Media Award in the daily newspaper category.
She won the award for a series of articles on Mr William Geary, who was sacked from the Garda Siochana in 1928 for allegedly accepting a bribe from the IRA. Mr Geary had always denied the charge and petitioned successive governments to reopen his case, but this only occurred in the aftermath of Margaret Ward's articles. As a result, he was exonerated and his pension rights were restored.
The overall winner this year was Barry O'Kelly, of the Star newspaper, who won a Dublin Crystal vase and £1,000 for what was described as his "dogged persistence" in the Philip Sheedy story. The director-general of the Law Society, Mr Ken Murphy, described this as "the biggest legal story perhaps in a decade".
The award in the non-daily newspaper category went to Tom Mooney, of the Echo in Enniscorthy, for an article on the Freedom of Information Act; the magazine award to Carol-Anne O'Reilly, of Consumer Choice; the radio award to Diarmaid MacDermott for an interview on Today with Pat Kenny; and the television award to Mary Raftery for the States of Fear series.
The guest at the presentation ceremony was the Attorney General, Mr Michael McDowell, who urged the media to distinguish between what was in the public interest in an objective sense and mere public curiosity.
He said that in general Ireland was blessed with high media standards, higher than those in the "neighbouring jurisdiction", although essentially the laws governing the media were the same in both countries.
Referring to the libel laws, he said that reform of the law on defamation remained part of the Programme for Government. How ever, one question being asked was whether additional rights would be abused.
While media coverage of the courts changed over time, an issue of concern was the emergence of spin doctors. There was great danger in their role in interpreting cases from a one-sided point of view, he said.