‘I was senior member of a murdering group,’ Sinn Féin official tells court
A SINN Féin official who is suing RTÉ for libel admitted under cross-examination that he was ‘a senior member of a murdering organisation’, and had continued to be a member of the IRA even after the 1974 Birmingham pub bombings.
Nicky Kehoe is seeking ‘significant compensation’ from the broadcaster for remarks made about him by former Labour TD Joe Costello on RTÉ Radio One’s Saturday With Claire Byrne on October 24, 2015.
His lawyers have told the court that Mr Costello told listeners that Mr Kehoe was ‘a member of the Provisional IRA Army Council… that he was member of a criminal organisation and that, like a puppet master, he controlled how the Sinn Féin councillors [on Dublin City Council] voted on important decisions’.
Mr Kehoe yesterday acknowledged that he participated in the attempted IRA kidnapping of multimillionaire Brown Thomas owner Galen Weston at his Wicklow home in 1983, when he was arrested ‘following a shoot-out with gardaí’.
Mr Kehoe was later convicted of ‘possession of weapons with intent to endanger life’, and had been ‘notorious at that time’, the court heard.
The court was told that Ms Byrne’s ‘very popular’ political discussion programme had about 238,000 listeners when the broadcast went out in 2015. Extracts from the broadcast were played to the jury yesterday, during which Mr Costello commented that there was ‘an entangled mess between the IRA and Sinn Féin and that has not gone away’.
Referring to Mr Kehoe, Mr Costello claimed there was a senior member of the IRA Army Council present at every Dublin City Council meeting and that ‘all the little heads swivel round when a decision has to be made’, the court heard. Sinn Féin’s Eoin Ó Broin, who was also on the studio panel, labelled Mr Costello’s claims ‘bizarre and outrageous’.
It was revealed to the court yesterday that Mr Costello’s unexpected claims had led an RTÉ producer to press a button setting off a ‘signal’ that ‘clicked’ in Ms Byrne’s earpiece. This button is reserved for when ‘something problematic is said’ live on air, the court heard.
Cian Ferriter SC, for RTÉ, explained: ‘As soon as Mr Costello went off with this allegation, the producer hit the “talkback” button and it clicked in Ms Byrne’s ear. Ms Byrne thought, “this sounds like a wild, unverified allegation, I’m very concerned about this”.
‘Ms Byrne will say that she sought to control the discussion, to try to close down this allegation and ensure it was exposed as an allegation without foundation.’
RTÉ says it is not liable for what happened because Mr Costello’s remarks had amounted to a ‘curveball thrown in a live broadcast that we had no notice about’.
But Mr Kehoe told the jury: ‘My name was defamed and that’s clear to me in my opinion. It went across 250,000 people that Nicky Kehoe was a member of the [IRA] Army Council.’
Turning to Mr Kehoe’s reputation claim, Mr Ferriter SC put it to the claimant that he was ‘not in a position to pick and choose now which IRA atrocities you thought were fine and supported, and which you think weren’t really okay’. Mr Kehoe replied: ‘I’d say most of the [IRA] campaign, all of the campaign was wrong in terms of the violence. It was wrong that people were killed.’
Asked if he had been ‘regularly referred to as a former IRA gunman’, the Dubliner replied: ‘Yes, in the media.’
Mr Kehoe agreed with Mr Ferriter that he had been ‘a senior member of that murdering organisation’. But Mr Kehoe added: ‘I got my [prison] time, I done it… The reputation I have now is different to the reputation I had then. I had to work very hard to get that reputation.’
paul.caffrey@dailymail.ie
She sought to close down allegation