The High Court will decide next Monday whether a number of libel actions brought by a Ukrainian woman, who survived the Moscow crash in which former TD Liam Lawlor died, should be heard together.
It is likely that the first of four cases against Irish newspapers, a case against the Sunday World, will not now go ahead until next November.
When Julia Kushnir's case against the Sunday World was mentioned before Ms Justice Elizabeth Dunne yesterday, Paul O'Higgins SC, for Ms Kushnir, asked that it be given priority in the next legal term.
He said a number of witnesses would have to travel from abroad, including the Czech Republic, New York and Israel, and he asked that a definite date be set aside for the case. It had been given priority before and it would now be appropriate to fix a set date, Mr O'Higgins said.
The High Court would hear an application on Monday that all the cases brought by Ms Kushnir be heard together, but Mr O'Higgins said he would argue that it would not be appropriate to do so. There were four cases pending, against the Sunday World, the Sunday Tribune, the Sunday Independent and the Irish Independent.
Mr O'Higgins said if they were heard together it would involve a "multiplicity of counsel and costs".
Colm Gordon SC for the Sunday World said the cases arose from the same incident and it seemed good case management and common sense that they all be listed together.
Eoin McCullough SC for Independent Newspapers said he would be making the application to have the cases heard together.
Ms Justice Elizabeth Dunne directed that all the Kushnir actions be listed together and she put the case in for mention next Thursday.
Ms Kushnir survived the car crash in Moscow in which former Fianna Fail TD Liam Lawlor died in October 2005.
A High Court jury was empanelled to hear her case in last February but it had to be discharged as another case went before it. The translator has sued a number of newspapers as a result of the reporting of the car crash.
She has claimed she was libelled when it was wrongly suggested that Mr Lawlor was in the company of a teenage prostitute.
She has settled her action against the Observernewspaper.