Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)
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609. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government further to Parliamentary Questions Nos 698, 699 and 700 of 13 January 2018, if following a High Court judgment (details supplied) regarding libel he will revoke his predecessors public statement on 24 April 2013 which includes the same selected excerpt from a report as used by a council. [8635/18]

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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The public statement of my predecessor and the associated report were not the subject of the High Court judgment referred to in the details supplied by the Deputy.

The case in question concerned a statement made in a press release issued by the Council on 23 April 2013. The plaintiffs brought proceedings against the council claiming that the last paragraph of the press release was defamatory towards them. This paragraph stated that a delay in sanctioning a loan to purchase a site, caused by the need to carry out an independent review as a result of allegations made by the plaintiffs, had resulted in a loss to the Council of circa €200,000 in respect of interest foregone and administrative costs. 

No such statement was made by my predecessor nor is it made in the report. Against that background, I see no basis for taking the step referred to.