RTE has revealed it was asked for documents relating to the finances of Denis O’Brien by Mark Hollingsworth, a British-based journalist who received a copy of the dossier at the centre of a court action being taken by the billionaire businessman.
Mr O’Brien has initiated a case against Red Flag, an Irish PR firm, for conspiracy and defamation based around the alleged compilation and dissemination of the dossier.
The Times also understands that Mr Hollingsworth met Barry Maloney, the head of Balderton Capital and a key witness in the Moriarty Tribunal, in September as part of his inquiries.
Yesterday, RTE reported that the information Mr Hollingsworth requested related to details of Mr O’Brien’s banking arrangements with IBRC, formerly Anglo Irish Bank.
The documents, first revealed by David Murphy, the RTE business editor, were at the centre of an injunction taken by Mr O’Brien against the national broadcaster.
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A story published on the RTE news website last night said Mr Hollingsworth claimed he was writing a story for The Sunday Times magazine when he approached the broadcaster.
The report stated that Mr Hollingsworth was told by RTE News that it would not allow him to see the documentation and refused to arrange for him to speak to the source of the material. A spokeswoman for RTE news and current affairs said the broadcaster had nothing further to add to the story.
Mr Hollingsworth did not return calls yesterday.
Mr Maloney told the Moriarty Tribunal that when they were jogging together in the Wicklow mountains in 1996, Mr O’Brien said that he had made a payment of IR£100,000 to Michael Lowry, then minister for communications. The tribunal found that Mr Lowry had helped secure the second mobile phone licence for Mr O’Brien, a conclusion that Mr O’Brien has always denied. Mr Maloney did not return calls last night
Speaking to The Sunday Times at the weekend, Mr Hollingsworth said he got the dossier of material from Karl Brophy, chief executive of Red Flag, for his research on an article on whistleblowers. He said his computer was hacked on Friday, October 9, by third-party software.
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Mr O’Brien has said the dossier was on a USB stick sent to him anonymously nine days ago after private investigators had begun making inquiries on his behalf into an alleged conspiracy to spread defamatory material about him and his businesses. There is no suggestion of a link between the alleged hacking and Mr O’Brien’s receipt of the USB flash drive.
Mr O’Brien is seeking a court order to allow him to inspect Red Flag’s computers to establish the identity of the person who is paying Red Flag and driving the alleged conspiracy to compile and disseminate the dossier of material about him.
Michael Cush, Mr O’Brien’s senior counsel, said the material was circulated with the intention of harming the recent stock market flotation if Digicel, the mobile network provider owned by Mr O’Brien. The $1.8 billion (€1.6 billion) float was pulled 72 hours before its launch, with Mr O’Brien blaming poor market conditions.
Red Flag is fully defending the action.
Mr Hollingsworth said he was given access to the dossier of press clippings and other files on Mr O’Brien via an email link to an online Dropbox facility after asking Mr Brophy for background material on the businessman. The freelance journalist said that he had not done anything with the material and it appeared to mostly contain information already in the public domain. One file gave a concise summary of the Moriarty Tribunal.
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Mr O’Brien’s lawyers have claimed the dossier contains “three memos rife with defamatory material” about their client.
Mr Hollingsworth said he needed the intervention of IT specialists to regain control of his computer and is considering reporting the incident to the police.
Mr Hollingsworth has been a regular freelance contributor to The Sunday Times, the Mail on Sunday and The Guardian for more than two decades.
He was not commissioned to write an article about Mr O’Brien for The Sunday Times, but when he began his research into the billionaire in July he told people in Ireland variously that he was writing a book about whistleblowers, an article for The Sunday Times, or an article about Mr O’Brien for publication in The Sunday Times Magazine.
A number of people he met over the past three months, including politicians, have raised concerns that Mr Hollingsworth relied on the reputation of The Sunday Times to secure interviews with them about sources, including those who may have provided material on Mr O’Brien’s relationship with IBRC and other matters.
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Anne-Marie McNally, the parliamentary assistant for the Social Democrats TD Catherine Murphy, said she met Oireachtas officials recently because she feared Mr Hollingsworth had sought out some Oireachtas members “with the intention of trying to ascertain their sources”.
Mr Hollingsworth told The Sunday Times he asked people about sources as he wanted to write about whistleblowers and their motivations. He said: “I am a freelance and independent journalist who has been contributing to The Sunday Times for the past 25 years. This is a matter of public record.
“I told Catherine Murphy and Anne-Marie McNally that I freelance for that newspaper and I would be proposing the story in the same way that I have done so to any newspaper since I first became a journalist 31 years ago.”