This apology, from the Irish edition of the Mirror, is a result of this court decision from last year.
ON June 10, 1998, under the headline "Burke in new pounds 30,000 probe" we published a report on pages one, two and three concerning Mr Denis O'Brien, the well-known businessman.
In that report we falsely stated an anonymous allegation had been made to the Flood Tribunal (as it then was) that Mr O'Brien had made a donation of pounds 30,000 to Ray Burke when he was Communications Minister and responsible for the allocation of radio licences in Ireland.
We also stated that Mr O'Brien's application for a licence for 98FM was successful.
We acknowledge Mr O'Brien made no donation of any description to Mr Burke and withdraw any suggestion to the contrary.
We also wrongly stated that Mr Burke was then responsible for the allocation of radio licences in Ireland.
In fact the Independent Radio and Television Commission was and remains the statutory body which oversees the granting of such licences.
We accept that our report was understood to mean that Mr O'Brien may have been guilty of conduct that warranted investigation by the Flood Tribunal and acknowledge that as a result the report was false and defamatory of him.
We withdraw any suggestion that Mr O'Brien acted in an unethical or improper manner or that he had done anything that warranted investigation by the Flood/Mahon Tribunal.
We unreservedly apologise to Mr O'Brien for the distress caused by our report and we acknowledge that he is entitled to a substantial sum in damages and to legal costs.
