Lawyers for Denis O'Brien have denied that the businessman threatened the High Court.

Mr O'Brien's Senior Counsel, Michael Cush, said it was not fair or accurate of RTÉ to characterise what Mr O'Brien said about reviewing his arrangements with Irish banks as a threat to the court.

Mr O'Brien is trying to stop the broadcast of an RTÉ report dealing with details of his banking affairs with the Irish Bank Resolution Corporation and a request by him in 2013 to extend his loans with the bank.

Lawyers for RTÉ read a portion of one of Mr O'Brien's sworn statements to the court yesterday in which he said if the pretext for disclosing this information was that he was a businessman dealing with Irish banks, then he and others would have to review all their arrangements with Irish banks.

Mr Cush said today that this was most certainly not a threat to the court, but a response to what RTÉ was saying.

Mr Cush said a suggestion by RTÉ that it was merely seeking to paint in the colour of matters that had been revealed since the case began was "instinctively repugnant".

He said a previous High Court decision allowing the Sunday Times to publish some details of a loan to businessman Paddy McKillen differed from this case.

He said the focus of the Sunday Times story was Mr McKillen's loan whereas the focus here was the governance of the IBRC.

He said revealing the amount of Mr O'Brien's loans at the time the extension was sought made no difference to that story.

Mr Cush said RTÉ had said Mr O'Brien's high profile made him subject to close scrutiny and criticism.

He said that was "fine" but he said close scrutiny was not the same as disclosing confidential information.

He said RTÉ had also suggested that the court was being asked to engage in a journalistic role and that should be left to professional journalists.

He said that was a highly dangerous proposition and if it was the case it would be an answer to every application to restrain a publication.

He said it was up to the court to balance competing legal rights.

Mr Cush said damages would not be an adequate remedy for Mr O'Brien and he accepted they would not be an adequate remedy for RTÉ either.

He said that he had to show the court that he had a convincing case to allow the court to grant an injunction.

He did not have to show that RTÉ had no chance of winning the case if they showed the story was in the public interest.

He said minutes of a meeting between the Minister for Finance and IBRC officials in 2012 showed that the first mention of Mr O'Brien was by the IBRC Chief Executive Mike Aynesley and there was nothing to suggest for one minute that any concern about Mr O'Brien's dealings with the bank was expressed by the minister.

He said he accepted there was a public interest in the affairs of the IBRC.

But he said there was no connection between Mr O'Brien requesting an extension to his loans and the expedition of the liquidation of the bank.

Mr Cush said there was no dispute between Mr O'Brien and RTÉ that the information RTÉ wanted to disclose was confidential.

He said it was the confidentiality that is said to be inherent in banking customer relationships.

He said there was a public interest in protecting these relationships.

He said everyone agreed that this was not a case of wrongdoing against Denis O'Brien.

He said the focus of the story was not Mr O'Brien but the governance of the IBRC.

Mr Cush said his client was the "colour" or the "flesh on the bones" of the story.

He said the way RTÉ sought to support the script of the report had no foundation in law.

He said if he did not get the injunction stopping the broadcast, the full hearing of the issues would be pointless.

Lawyers for the IBRC told the court the bank is very concerned that the script of RTÉ's proposed report makes specific reference to paragraphs of legal advice given to the bank.

Barrister Andrew Fitzpatrick said the court should be concerned about this too as legal professional privilege is a fundamental part of the administration of justice.

He said it was clear that what was in the script was lifted from the advice.

Lawyers for RTÉ said that just because a lawyer sends a letter to a bank stating the blindingly obvious, it cannot be the case that the rest of the world was prevented from making the same proposition.

Lawyers for IBRC said RTÉ wanted to Mr Denis O'Brien's confidential commercial information into its news report because without it, the report would be boring.

Barrister Andrew Fitzpatrick said no law existed to allow this.

Journalists had no right not to be boring he said, adding that

the law did not exist to make sure journalists did not broadcast boring news stories.

Mr Fitzpatrick said the bank had reported a breach of data protection legislation to the Data Protection Commissioner in relation to the leaking of information about Mr O'Brien's loans, to RTÉ.

He said the commissioner was investigating.

Mr Fitzpatrick said the public interest considerations in this case were not significant.

He said the corporate governance of IBRC was a matter of public interest.

But he said the publication of the information RTÉ wanted to publish could not be justified having regard to what was clearly confidential information.

Mr Justice Donald Binchy said every citizen in the country was concerned with whether IBRC was wound up in the most financially efficient and effective way for this State.

He asked did it not follow that there was a significant public interest issue in knowing what, if any, arrangements there might be that might in any way reduce the effectiveness of what IBRC might recover?

Mr Fitzpatrick said there may be but it was not raised in this case.

He said the public interest considerations raised here were not sufficient.

Mr Justice Binchy said he hoped to give judgment in the case next week.

He said that would inevitably mean towards the end of the week rather than the beginning.