The columnist, Eamon Dunphy, told the High Court yesterday that when he described himself as being the Sunday Independent's "highly paid boot boy" he was being ironic. The phrase was a stick regularly used to beat him and the newspaper.
Mr Dunphy was giving evidence on the seventh day of the libel action being taken by the former Minister for Social Welfare, Mr Proinsias De Rossa, over an article in the Sunday Independent by Mr Dunphy on December 13th, 1992. He completed his evidence yesterday morning.
Under cross-examination by Mr Sean Ryan SC, for Mr De Rossa, Mr Dunphy said he had been called the "Sunday Independent's highly paid boot boy" by Phoenix magazine and possibly by a columnist in The Irish Times. "It was a stick used regularly to beat me and the Sunday Independent," he said.
Mr Ryan had asked if he had ever described himself as the Sun- day
Independent's boot boy. Mr Dunphy said he was asked a question by a journalist in a Hot Press interview and the question was based on a description or depiction of him regularly used in Phoenix that he was the newspaper's boot boy.
He might have said yes to the journalist but he would never accept the depiction. It was condescending because he was a working class person, had been a footballer and had never gone to UCD or DCU. It was easy to depict him in that way. Mr Dunphy said he did not care what Phoenix or anybody else thought about him, except the people he worked with and the people who read the newspaper. He said the Hot Press interview was perhaps 18 months ago.
Mr Ryan asked if in his own column dated November 28th, 1993, he had described himself as "being this newspaper's highly paid boot boy".
Mr Dunphy said that was ironic. It was an ironic reference to a characterisation of him. If counsel was going to take literally an ironic self-
deprecating reference to himself in order to try to twist the truth, that was for counsel. Mr Ryan asked if he was saying it was ironic, a joke. Mr Dunphy said irony was humour. It was a device journalists legitimately used.
"I am not a boot boy, Mr Ryan, I am a journalist and a conscientious journalist," Mr Dunphy said. Mr Ryan asked if he was right in saying that Mr
Dunphy's attitude was that if he attacked somebody and they did not sue, they accepted it was the truth.
Mr Dunphy said his attitude was that if he broke the laws of libel he would be sued and that was correct. Anybody who felt he had broken the law had a right to seek redress in the court. There were an awful lot of people threatening and intimidating journalists all the time. They should "put up or shut up".
Mr Ryan asked him about the editorial in the same edition of the Sunday
Independent as his article. Mr Dunphy said it would have been written by somebody else in another place. Asked if the point made in the editorial was that Labour had wasted a lot of time talking to Democratic Left, Mr Dunphy said he had no idea what was in it. Mr Adrian Hardiman last time had suggested the case made in the editorial was similar to the case made in his article.
Mr Dunphy said he could only believe counsel and he was sure counsel was correct. He agreed with the proposition that they were closely aligned. Mr Ryan said the headline on the editorial, written by a sub-editor, was "The `Jobs'
Chimera". He would suggest that tied in with Mr Dunphy's article with the headline "Throwing good money at `jobs' is dishonest". Mr Ryan said somebody was making the connection by putting "jobs" in quotes in exactly the same way.
Mr Dunphy said he took the view, shared by many people, that the people going around saying they could cure unemployment by throwing money at it and professing to care about people out of work were dishonest.
"We did put the inverted commas in because it was phoney," Mr Dunphy said.
Mr Ryan asked: "Who are `we'?"
Mr Dunphy said "we" was anyone who believed that that talk was phoney - a number of writers in the Sunday Independent and in the editorial area.
Mr Ryan asked if he would accept that the connection was a legitimate one. Mr
Dunphy replied: "Yes."