Mr Dirk Folens and the Irish Mail On Sunday

The Press Ombudsman has decided to uphold a complaint made by Mr Dirk Folens that the inclusion of an architect’s plan of the layout of his home in an article published in the Irish Mail on Sunday on 26 May 2013 breached Principle 5 (Privacy) of the Code of Practice for Newspapers and Magazines.

A number of other complaints about the inclusion of photographs in the same article were not upheld.

The article, entitled “Indians being paid €3 a day to print our school books,” reported on the out-sourcing of the printing of books by Folens publishers. Mr Folens complained that the inclusion in the article of photographs of him, his house, his private aircraft and an architect’s  plan of the layout of his home were a breach of his privacy, and that they were  irrelevant to the main thrust of the story,  because he had not been an active participant in the day-to-day running of the  publishing firm for some six years and had had no involvement whatsoever in the decisions taken as to where these books should be printed. He asked for an undertaking from the newspaper that information on his private life would not be published by them in the future.   

The newspaper replied that the complainant was a director, shareholder and secretary of a number of companies within the Folens group of companies, that he financially benefited from business decisions taken within the group, and that there was therefore a public interest justification in publishing the photograph and layout of his house.   It also said that the graphic of the property was based upon public planning records and therefore publicly available.     It gave an assurance that the newspaper would not publish any material that was a breach of his right to privacy, but did not agree to his request that no information about his private life would be published in the future.   

The Press Ombudsman accepted that the graphic of the property was, if based upon public planning records, publicly available.  Principle 5.2 states that “... the right to privacy should not prevent publication of matters of public record ...”   However, the Press Ombudsman decided that   “should not” allows for the possibility of exceptions,  and that it therefore does not exclude the possibility that the inclusion of material that is publicly available may, in certain circumstances, be an unacceptable breach of the right to privacy.

The Press Ombudsman decided, in the light of all the circumstances,  that the inclusion of the graphic of the complainant’s home was not justified  by the provisions of Principle 5.2 of the Code in relation to matters of public record or – as argued   by the publication, because it was in the public interest or was material that was publicly available -  -and  it was therefore a breach of the entitlement of readers to have news and comment presented with respect for their privacy and sensibilities as also expressed in Principle 5.2.

The Press Ombudsman decided that publication of  photographs of the complainant, his aircraft and  his home (without specifying the house’s location in detail)  did not, in the context of this article, amount to  a breach of Principle 5 of the Code of Practice, and complaints in respect of these photographs  were therefore not upheld.

2 October 2013