‘What was funny about calling my client a robber?’
A PR consultant who suggested comparing a minister to an 18th -century highwayman has told a court that she was trying to be funny – and that there was no plan to ‘ruin’ him.
Former journalist Neans McSweeney issued a press release on behalf of Fine Gael deputy John Paul Phelan in early 2016, branding Paudie Coffey, the then housing minister, ‘Coffey the Robber’.
This has led to a High Court libel action being taken by Mr Coffey against the Kilkenny People newspaper for publishing the remarks. Mr Coffey, 49, from Portlaw, Co. Waterford, has since lost his Dáil seat but is now a senator. He is seeking ‘significant compensation’ for being compared to ‘Crotty the Robber’ who was hanged in 1742.
The comparison to Crotty was made in quotes that were attributed to Kilkenny TD Mr Phelan in the Kilkenny People newspaper in January 2016, amid controversy over boundary changes. In the article, Mr Phelan accused Waterford deputy Mr Coffey of ‘robbing chunks of south Kilkenny’ through a Government ‘boundary review’. The newspaper is fully defending the case.
Yesterday, Ms McSweeney revealed she came up with the phrase ‘Coffey the Robber’, having gone to see a stage play about the original ‘Crotty the Robber’ a few months earlier.
Opening his cross-examination, Richard Kean SC, for Mr Coffey, put it to her: ‘I appear for Senator Coffey, who you prefer to call “Coffey the Robber”?’
She replied: ‘Parody was introduced in the press release, but I know Mr Coffey as Senator Coffey or Minister Coffey.’ Mr Kean challenged her: ‘Let’s see what was funny about what was happening here.’
Ms McSweeney agreed that county boundaries ‘was a very, very serious matter’, but insisted the comparison with a robber was ‘parody, pure and simple, it is not malicious’.
Mr Phelan was quoted in the 2016 article as pointing out that Crotty the Robber had been ‘the leader of a gang of bloodthirsty highwaymen’. When Mr Kean asked if this had been a ‘bit of craic’ also, she insisted: ‘For people who didn’t know [who Crotty was], this was further explanation… it added to the parody.’
She said: ‘There was never, ever an effort – blatant or even a suggestion – that this was to take down a man, or take somebody out, or maliciously ruin them or anything like that.’
The hearing, before a jury and Judge Bernard Barton, continues.