Former councillor ordered to pay €50,000 damages for defaming Sinn Fein Cllr Eddie Fennessy
A 51-year-old former Navan councillor who falsely claimed that a Sinn Fein councillor in the town had threatened to arrange “a punishment beating of him by his IRA comrades and the petrol bombing of his home” has been ordered to pay €50,000 in defamation damages him. Cllr Eddie Fennessy, a sitting full-time Sinn Fein councillor for the Navan Municipal District of Meath County Council and former three-times Mayor of the town took an action against former independent councillor Wayne Forde, Parnell Park, Navan at Trim Circuit Court where the hearing went on for almost three hours.
In making the award against Mr Forde, Judge Mary O’Malley Costello said that the case was “at the highest level of defamation”. A barrister in the case referred to the recent case in which businessman Denis O’Brien was ordered to pay a total of €823,500 damages to two solicitors after O’Brien’s team had falsely suggested that a critical report by the solicitors was essentially a paid-for Sinn Fein/Ira production. Judge Tony O’Brien had considered that “a very serious incidence of defamation”, he said.
Barrister David Lennon (instructed by Cosgrave solicitors) said certain allegations were posted by Mr Forde on Facebook and Tik Tok around the time of last year’s local elections and the most serious of these had been that Mr Fennessy had threatened to arrange a “punishment beating of the defendant by his Ira comrades and the petrol bombing of his home and that he was going to be conflicted in an attempt to kill the defendant”.
Other allegations included that Mr Fennessy had been guilty of understating his council salary, and was guilty of social welfare fraud, questioning his honesty and making comments about his appearance. It was alleged that Mr Forde had put up a post saying “I can see why EF is getting a bit of belly early on” in reference to his council salary. Mr Forde said he had not posted “EF” and when he was asked if the post had been doctored he replied “Absolutely”. Mr Lennon said the defendant accepted he made the posts but his defence was that he was challenging the meaning of those posts and made a “somewhat unclear” challenge whether or not he identified Mr Fennessy in the posts.
Cllr Edward Fennessy
Mr Fennessy said in evidence that he had been engaged in politics since he was 11 years old and through his teens and was co-opted to Meath County Council in 2018 to replace the late Cllr Joe Reilly and was elected in 2019. It was alleged, and it was accepted by Mr Forde, that in a post of November 2023 he had said that he “could see why EF is getting a bit of a belly after getting €50,000 and €7,500 as Mayor. Nice, nearly €60,000, over €1,500 a week”. In fact, he earned €42,000. He took those remarks as an attempt to try to damage his election campaign.
It was alleged by Mr Forde that when he met Mr Fennessy one evening he had said to him “did you ever hear of a punishment beating? Well, that’s what’s coming to you. For sure you don’t f*** with me and get away with it””. Mr Fennessy said in the witness box that he had never said anything like that. He said he had met Mr Forde in the car park of Supervalu Trim Road Navan where he was attending to a constituent’s burst pipes problem. Mr Forde had “come out of nowhere and started ranting and raving about expenses”. He had told Mr Forde that his figures were “way off the mark” and that he needed to go and read the Meath Chronicle where the accurate figures were published.
He alleged that Mr Forde had said “I’m f*****g right, I know I’m f*****g right”. He warned him if he continued to put out those figures he would be getting a solicitor’s letter, Mr Fennesy said. He described as “preposterous” any suggestion that he might be responsible for organising punishment beatings. He said it was “easy pickings” because there was a history that might have been there 40-50 years ago but it was certainly not in the history of the party he joined in 2004-2205.
These allegations had an effect on his family. His wife in particular would meet people on the street and they would mention them to her. Dealing with references to punishment beatings, he said that he had never been a member of the IRA. “The IRA went out of existence in 2005 which is around the time I joined Sinn Fein and political activism is all I’ve ever been involved in”.
Former Navan Cllr Wayne Forde
Mr Forde, who represented himself, said in evidence that Mr Fennessy had threatened and intimidated him “and left me petrified”. He said he had put up on Facebook about Mr Fennessy’s wages “but I never mentioned his name”. In reply to the judge he said that he was claiming the publications were true but he did not believe they were in any way damaging to Mr Fennessy. “I do not believe that anything I put up on Facebook is any way defamatory and they’re really clutching at straws. If they were concentrating on their own job they wouldn’t have to worry about me”. He said he as “absolutely petrified” that Cllr Fennessy had put his name and address on all social media platforms.
JUDGE’S FINDING ON THE CASE
The judge said that the publication of incorrect figures of Mr Fennessy’s council salary would not attract a huge amount of compensation and that might have arisen through misunderstanding. However, all the other matters were very very serious and they were going to have very serious consequences for both parties involved.
The plaintiff’s position was that he had joined a fully- recognised political organisation in this country that clearly had been, as a matter of law accepted by the Government as a situation where they were entitled to put themselves forward in General Elections for the purpose of elections and to be elected by rightminded members of the public as had happened in the case of members of the Dail, the Senate and local authorities.
There was no question but that Mr Fennessy was an upstanding member of the public. There is no doubt that he had been elected by various members of the public to represent them and indeed to be mayor for the local town. There was no truth in the allegation that he might have links to an illegal organisation and there was no truth in the allegation that he threatened to have anyone the subject of a punishment beating or any of the like.
It was at the highest level of defamation that Mr Forde had alleged that Mr Fennessy said he would have him the subject of a punishment beating. “In the present climate to suggest that somebody would subject somebody or get somebody else to subject them to a punishment beating or indeed attack them in their home is really dreadful”, she added. She told Mr Forde that he was “somewhat of a fantasist”. “You don’t seem to fully understand the effect that this type of winding up of people on social media is going to have on the general public and you don’t seem to understand the effect it would have on Mr Fennessy.
Do you think that he is so thick skinned that none of these allegations have affected him in sleeping at night, in dealing with his business and also the effect it has on his family? Of course it has.” The judge made an order directing Mr Forde to pay €50,000 damages to Mr Fennessy for defaming him. He also made an order restraining Mr Forde from defaming or disparaging Mr Fennessy in any way whatsoever in the future.
