Senator in tears at ‘constant ridicule’
Coffey believes ‘robber jibe’ cost him his Dáil seat
FINE Gael senator Paudie Coffey wept in court yesterday over the fact that party colleague John Paul Phelan TD branded him ‘Coffey the Robber’, and it was published locally. The 49-year-old said he is ‘still suffering everywhere I go’ and wants ‘significant compensation’ from the paper group that ran the story.
The taunt was a direct reference to ‘Crotty the Robber’, a thieving killer who was hanged for his crimes in Waterford in 1742.
The case grew out of a local row over a proposed change to the Kilkenny/Waterford boundary in early 2016, which was part of a nationwide review of county boundaries being overseen by Mr Coffey, the junior housing minister at the time.
Mr Phelan, a Kilkenny TD, accused Mr Coffey, a Waterford TD, of ‘robbing chunks of south Kilkenny’ through the review.
Mr Coffey is suing the Kilkenny People, which published the comments in January 2016, but he is not suing his party colleague.
The court heard that Mr Coffey has been jeered at on the street since, and that he believes the article was a ‘contributing factor’ to him losing his Dáil seat in the February 2016 general election.
He recalled ‘knocking on doors’ in the run-up to that election and said the article had ‘brought all these question marks over my candidacy, my person, my character’.
Three months later, he was nominated to the Seanad by the then taoiseach Enda Kenny, where he remains a senator. Rossa Fanning SC, for the newspaper group, suggested the loss of his seat ‘would have been more of a knock to his confidence than any article’.
Mr Coffey, from Portlaw, Co. Waterford, told the court last week that he never raised the issue with Mr Phelan. Instead, he is suing Iconic Newspapers Ltd, which publishes the Kilkenny People, and Sam Matthews, the journalist who wrote the article. The politician’s claims are denied.
Mr Coffey’s former driver and friend, Michael O’Brien, told the court yesterday that the politician ‘became isolated and went into his shell’ after the piece was published. He recalled seeing a man shout, ‘Go away Coffey you robber’ at Mr Coffey in the street in February 2016.
Mr Coffey told the court he believes in free speech but said the article ‘attacked me personally and professionally’.
He said he’d heard about Crotty the Robber growing up, ‘and that he was notorious’ in the Comeragh area of Waterford.
The court heard that the Kilkenny People never gave the senator a chance to respond to Mr Phelan’s claims before going to print.
The court also heard that the paper reported Mr Phelan’s accusation that Mr Coffey and the then environment minister Alan Kelly were ‘banding together to commit ‘daylight robbery’.
Mr Coffey told the jury of eight men and four women: ‘I was never a robber… immediately when someone reads that, they associate me with being a criminal. It [the article] implies I was colluding with the senior minister in my department… that gives a misleading impression to the public that I’m doing something inappropriate in my office as a minister, and I had no opportunity to reply to that.’
Mr Coffey became emotional as he told the jury: ‘It crossed a line and made a personal attack on me and my family. I’m still suffering because of it, everywhere I go.’
Holding up a copy of the article to the court, he added: ‘That went everywhere.’
Mr Coffey, whose politician father Pat died in 2002, then broke down in tears before telling the court: ‘I definitely don’t want to be here, but I make no apologies for defending my good name and my family’s good name… I was proud to be a minister in this country, proud to be a public representative… To attack someone in this way affected me deeply.’
He added that he would ‘love to get an apology’ from the newspaper group. The article was published in print and online, and ‘anyone, anywhere had access to the article online and still have to this day’, Mr Coffey said.
His lawyers have described Iconic Newspapers Ltd as a ‘powerful’ media group.
The case continues before Judge Bernard Barton, who has warned that he’ll take a ‘seriously dim view’ of any juror tweeting about the case while it is ongoing.
‘A misleading impression’