The Minister for Tourism, Sport and Recreation, Dr McDaid, was awarded £90,000 damages by a High Court jury yesterday over a newspaper article which wrongly accused him of refusing to disclose to gardai the names of two alleged child abusers referred to but not named in a Government-commissioned report on child sexual abuse in swimming.
The jury made the award following one hour's deliberation at the end of a two-day hearing during which Dr McDaid complained he was jostled and abused in Grafton Street, Dublin, and threatened at Leopardstown Racecourse, after publication of the article in the Examiner on June 19th, 1998.
The article was published on the front page with the headline "Gardai must get complaints before taking action. He [Dr McDaid] knows who the sex monsters are, but he won't tell the Gardai".
It alleged the Minister would not hand over to gardai details of two swimming coaches accused of sexually abusing young children.
On the following day, June 20th, the Examiner published an apology. It stated that the previous day's article was inaccurate and wrongly suggested the Minister was aware of the two swimming coaches accused of sexually abusing young children whose identities had not been revealed in the Murphy Report.
After the hearing, Dr McDaid told reporters he was very happy with the award although not "triumphalist" about it.
He said he had never taken an action against the media before but in this case he felt he had to do so in order to protect his reputation.
Asked if the award was much greater than what was offered to him by the Examiner at the start of the case, Dr McDaid replied: "Absolutely".
During yesterday's hearing, the Minister told of an encounter in Grafton Street, Dublin, following publication of the original article during which he was called a "fucking child abuser" and a "fucking paedophile". On another occasion at Leopardstown Racecourse, he was approached by a person who remarked: "If I could get you for an hour, I would get the names [of the coaches] out of you."
While he was pleased that the paper had apologised a day after the original article, it had not prevented what had happened to him, such as abusive phone calls which he received for a three-week period afterwards.
In his address to the jury, Mr Justice O'Donovan said the only issue to be tried was how much Dr McDaid was to receive in compensation or damages from the Examiner.
He told the jury it had to be fair to the Minister who without doubt had been libelled but it also had to be fair to the newspaper which had admitted the libel and carried a front-page apology. The award must strike a balance.