Journalist Awarded Legal Costs Against Lowry

Michael Lowry

The journalist and broadcaster Sam Smyth has been awarded legal costs against local politician Michael Lowry following his successful defence in a defamation case that was before the Courts this week. The defamation case related to comments made by Sam Smyth, in a national newspaper and on television, that Michael Lowry had been “caught with his hand in the till” and went on to suggest that he was a thief, a corrupt politician, dishonest, untrustworthy and unfit to have been a Minister and a TD.

In the defamation case Michael Lowry had alleged Sam Smyth had made false and defamatory remarks about him in the Irish Independent newspaper and on TV3’s ‘Tonight With Vincent Browne’ current affairs programme last year.

However, during the court case Sam Smyth had defended his comments and argued that they were true and based on his honest opinion and constituted fair and reasonable publication in matters of public interest. He has also claimed that what had been discovered about Michael Lowry during the McCracken and Moriarty tribunals had led inevitably to the conclusion that he was indeed corrupt, dishonest, untrustworthy and both unfit and unsuitable to be a minister and TD.

In Court this week, Judge Margaret Heneghan told Counsel for Sam Smyth that his client was entitled to his costs and refused to grant a stay on her order pending an appeal of all issues to the High Court. The legal costs awarded to Sam Smyth are understood to be in the tens of thousands of euros.

Source: RTE.ie