Two Belfast-based solicitors who co-authored a report on media ownership in Ireland are suing businessman Denis O’Brien and James Morrissey, his press adviser, for defamation in the Irish High Court.

The claim centres on a press statement from O’Brien issued last year by Morrissey following publication of the report. The solicitors claimed O’Brien’s concentration of media ownership in the Republic had the potential to have a “chilling effect” on news-gathering and reporting in the public interest.

Gavin Booth and Darragh Mackin, both solicitors with KRW Law in Belfast, were two of four authors of the report on media ownership. It had been commissioned by Lynn Boylan, a Sinn Fein MEP, through her membership of the GUE/NGL (European United Left/Nordic Green Left) group in the European