Minister of State Mr John Perry TD and the Irish Mail On Sunday

The Press Ombudsman has decided to uphold a complaint by Mr John Perry TD, Minister of State for Small Business, made through his solicitors, that an article published in the Irish Mail on Sunday on 11 August 2013 was in breach of Principle 1 of the Code of Practice.  

The article, which reported on two loans made to the complainant, was headlined  “State bank lent Perry’s firm £153k .... interest-free” and stated that a company owned by the complainant was given two interest-free loans from a State controlled bank in March l997. Further down in the article it was stated that loan documents seen by the newspaper “appeared” to show two interest free loans were made.

The newspaper said that its article had been based on a document prepared by the bank in question and seen by its reporter which, on its face, appeared to show that the loan taken out by the complainant’s company was interest free.  It said that it had tried unsuccessfully to elicit a comment from the Minister before publication, and offered to publish an assertion from the Minister that the loans were interest bearing.  It further offered to amend the proposed wording on receipt of documentary evidence from the complainant to support his assertions that the loans had been interest-bearing and had been repaid.

The complainant supplied documentation from the bank which had taken over the State bank that made the original loans.  This documentation provided evidence of loans dating from the date mentioned in the article, and contained figures about the capital sums involved which the newspaper accepted approximated to those in the bank document on which its story had been based.  This documentation also provided evidence of payments of sums for interest on the loans in question and that the loans had been repaid in full.   The publication repeated its offer to publish a statement from the complainant, but did not offer to publish a correction on its own authority.

The Press Ombudsman is satisfied, on the evidence available to him, that sums were charged and paid as interest on the loans identified in the documents supplied and that all outstanding amounts had been repaid in full.    In the light of the information contained in these documents,  and in the spirit of the Code as set out in its Preamble, the limitation of the  offer  to the publication of  a counter-assertion by the complainant was insufficient to resolve the complaint.    On this basis, the complaint that the article breached Principle 1 of the Code of Practice is upheld.  

There is insufficient evidence to uphold a complaint under Principle 4 that the material concerned had been published knowingly  - as this Principle requires - based on malicious misrepresentations or unfounded accusations, or that,  in making its inquiries, the newspaper had not taken reasonable care in checking facts  before publication.

25 April 2014