ENTERPRISE and Employment Minister Richard Bruton has said that he has "no argument" with the three Irish Press titles being sold to another investor.
In his first public comment since the collapse of plans to relaunch the Sunday Press, Mr Bruton told RTE's This Week programme that it was for the owners of the Irish Press group to take the key decisions about its future.
"One option clearly would be to see the sale of the titles, and an entirely new approach adopted I would have no argument with that". There was clearly a need for new investors to come in, he added.
Independent Newspapers advanced a £2 million loan to Irish Press when it bought its 24.9 per cent stake in Irish Press plc and Irish Press Publications.
The loan was secured on the three Press titles and Independent will therefore have a major role in any future sale of the titles.
Mr Bruton said that he was "keen to see the Press go back on the streets" but added that he did not control the marketplace, and could not therefore create competition in the market.
It was his role to merely police the market and ensure that competition legislation was complied with, he added.
Mr Bruton said that everyone wanted to see plurality in the newspaper market, but noted that "being a large and strong player in the market is not a breach of competition law".
However, he added, that players in any industry "who are very large and dominant" would be made more amenable to competition law, through a change in the legislation which would allow third parties to make complaints to the Competition Authority.
Former Sunday Press editor, Mr Michael Keane, who had been working on the relaunch of the newspaper, told This Week that there were a number of factors why the planned relaunch did not proceed.
He said that while Independent Newspapers was prepared to invest capital up to its 24.9 per cent stake in the company, it was worried that it may have had to go beyond that level, thus provoking intervention from Minister Bruton.
Mr Keane said that the business plan for the new Sunday Press "might have been unattractive to them (Independent Newspapers) maybe they thought it was too optimistic, for example
Other sources said yesterday that the business plan presented to Independent Newspapers by Solange, the vehicle which was being used for the relaunch, was not as detailed as Independent may have wished.
The sources said the business plan envisaged modest losses for the first year of operation, but had no data for years two and three. The plan is understood to have budgeted for the relaunched title winning about 95 per cent of the advertising revenue that the Sunday Press had before its demise.
The plan also envisaged the relaunched paper achieving sales of about 147,000 almost immediately from the relaunch date. Average sales of the Sunday Press fell from 156,500 in 1994 to 150,000 in the six month's before the company's collapse.
The business plan is also understood to have given no details of what action would have been taken if these sales and advertising revenue targets were not met.
According to sources, Independent News papers was prepared to invest capital in the relaunch but was concerned that the absence of any investor of substance would pose problems, and could persuade Minister Bruton to intervene.
