Denis O’Brien says Dáil claims by Catherine Murphy ‘false’

Billionaire Denis O'Brien has criticised claims made about his business affairs in the Dáil on Friday by Social Democrats TD Catherine Murphy.

The Kildare North deputy made allegations about Mr O'Brien and businessman Paddy McKillen during a debate on the Commission of Investigation into transactions involving the Irish Bank Resolution Corporation.

Using Oireachtas privilege, Ms Murphy said Mr O’Brien had offered to guarantee a £5 million loan that had been sought by Mr McKillen from the bank four years ago.

The matter was at the heart of an injunction the men secured in March 2013 against The Sunday Times preventing it, and all other newspapers and broadcasting media, from reporting details of the transaction.

In a statement, Mr O’Brien said Ms Murphy’s comments were “false” and “based on documents she knows were illegally obtained”.

He said that “because of ongoing litigation relating to a claim by me of abuse of Dáil privilege by Ms Murphy last year I am not in a position to detail the defamatory nature of her statements”.

“For the record, I fully endorse the principle of Dáil privilege but not when it is used to voice untruths or to make public the proper private and personal financial affairs of any individual,” he added.

Mr O'Brien is taking legal action against the clerk of Dáil Éireann and the Dáil Committee on Procedures and Privileges after its members rejected claims by Mr O'Brien that statements made in the Dáil about him and the purchase of Siteserv, which had loans in the IBRC, by Ms Murphy and Sinn Féin's Pearse Doherty constituted an abuse of privilege.The case is pending.

Losses

The Siteserv transaction is one of those being examined by the commission which is looking into about 40 IBRC transactions that involved losses of more than €10 million for the bank. Issues of confidentiality and privacy identified by commission chairman Judge Brian Cregan have stalled its work and measures to help overcome these problems were being debated in the Dáil on Friday when Ms Murphy made her comments.

She said that in 2012, “the then heavily indebted developer Paddy McKillen sought a bridging loan of just £5 million from IBRC when he had a cashflow problem following his unsuccessful litigation against the Barclay brothers”.

She continued: “As part of that process, Richard Woodhouse, a man connected with the Siteserv sale, and Mr O’Brien advised members of the IBRC, including (former IBRC chief Mike) Aynsley and Tom Hunerson - people connected directly with the Siteserv deal - that Mr O’Brien would provide IBRC with a guarantee of £5 million to support the loan for Mr McKillen.”

Mr Aynsley said Ms Murphy’s comments were “inaccurate” and could prejudice the work of the commission.

“Deputy Murphy’s speech referred to known performing clients of the bank and presented a selective picture that provides nothing other than the scantest outline without accuracy, key facts, background or perspective - the result is an uninformed picture filled with scaremongering and innuendo,” he said.

“It does so in such a way to infer the existence of a soap opera type conspiracy of the bank’s board, management and clients.”

Ms Murphy told The Irish Times she stood over her comments and her speech was posing questions in the context of the debate on the legislation relating to the commission, which she hoped would be able to progress with its work in the near future.