THE PRESS Council has upheld a complaint by the wife of trade union leader David Begg over a newspaper article in the Sunday Independent which she said was a breach of her right to privacy.
An article that appeared on November 8th last under the headline “Geraghty’s des res and the house Jack ‘built’ ” focused on the homes and salaries of trade union leaders. This followed a controversial proposal by the Irish Congress of Trade Unions that tax should be applied to so-called “trophy homes”.
Marie Begg complained that the article, which included details of her home’s market value, location and security arrangements, was a breach of the council’s code of practice for newspapers on privacy grounds.
In light of the importance of the public interest versus the right to privacy argument, the Press Ombudsman referred the complaint to the Press Council. The council ruled that the proposal to tax “trophy homes” raised a matter of significant public interest.
However, it said the matter needed to be treated with “due regard for a reasonable balance between the right of the public to know and of newspapers to inform them, and the right of every person to privacy”.
It decided that the photograph of Ms Begg’s home, together with details of its location and a reference to security arrangements, was “not essential to achieving the purposes of the story”.
The Press Council upheld her complaint and said the article had breached the privacy grounds – section five – of its code of practice.
In a separate ruling last week, the Press Ombudsman upheld a complaint by former union leader Des Geraghty that the same article was inaccurate and a breach of his privacy.
The article featured a photo and details of a property in Dublin which the newspaper claimed to be his. Mr Geraghty complained that he did not own the property in question and there was no public interest in the publication of personal details about him in the context of an article on current trade union leaders. Mr Geraghty retired from Siptu in 2003.
