Sir, – In the article “Holding court – O’Brien’s long list of legal actions” by Colm Keena there is a passing reference to a case being taken by Denis O’Brien against The Irish Times (May 14th).

You decided not to publish the basis for the legal proceedings. Perhaps a more professional and honourable approach would have been to state that Denis O’Brien was taking a case following an Irish Times article that claimed he was responsible for a €110 million loss to the taxpayer as a result of the sale of Siteserv, which loss was in fact a result of the IBRC writedown of bad loans which had nothing to do with me.

By so doing you would have simply recited the facts of the claim as they are.

I believe that being 1) a publisher and 2) a party to legal proceedings calls for the highest standards of reporting and objectivity. – Yours, etc,

DENIS O’BRIEN,

Communicorp,

One Grand Canal Quay,

Dublin 2.