Barristers’ fury with Browne and Flood
Cooney and Allen look set to sue over remarks by former tribunal chairman
EXCLUSIVE TWO OF Ireland’s best known barristers look set to sue the broadcaster, VincentBrowne, for libel, along with RTE and Mr Justice Feargus Flood, over what they will maintain are entirely false and highly damaging allegations made live on air last week by the former chairman of the planning tribunal.
Mr Justice Flood is now chairman of the Centre for Public Inquiry, a selfappointed and increasingly controversial organisation funded by a charity backed by US billionaire Chuck Feeney. Speaking of himself on the RTE radio last week, the former judge, who is 77, declared: “Age has set in.”
In an RTE studio on Wednesday, while he was flanked by Frank Connolly, the executive director of the Centre who has been publicly linked to the politics of Sinn Fein/IRA, Mr Justice Flood effectively accused senior counsels Colm Allen and Garret Cooney of having attempted to bring to a halt his tribunal and to make it unworkable.
Asked yesterday if he relished the prospect of having to apologise to Mr Allen and Mr Cooney, Vincent Browne said he had “nothing to say”. He added: “This is a matter for Feargus Flood.”
When it was pointed out to him that Mr Justice Flood had made the damaging allegations on his RTE 1 radio programme, Tonight with Vincent Browne, Mr Browne said: “I wouldn’t have to apologise for anything. In fact, I sought to ensure that Garret Cooney was not defamed.”
Yesterday, the Sunday Independent established that Mr Allen ( who represented the Bailey brothers as well as lobbyist Frank Dunlop at the planning tribunal) and Mr Cooney (who represented the engineering firm JMSE and members of the Murphy family) were carefully studying transcripts of the radio programme.
Neither man was prepared to comment when contacted, although it is reliably understood that they were both deeply upset and angered by the comments which Mr Justice Flood was allowed to make virtually unchallenged on air.
Yesterday, senior sources at