John Delaney complained to Law Society over former FAI solicitors, Court of Appeal told

Details of Mr Delaney’s complaint against A&L were revealed in the Court of Appeal last week as it heard Delaney’s appeal against a High Court judgment that said the Corporate Enforcement Authority (CEA) can access 1,123 emails over which Mr Delaney claims legal privilege.

The emails were seized by gardaí working with the CEA in February 2020 but investigators on the FAI case have been unable to read them because of a three-year legal battle.

Mr Delaney claims the records relate to legal advice or ongoing litigation but Judge Leonie Reynolds in the High Court ruled that Mr Delaney had failed to justify his claims of privilege.

In the Court of Appeal on Thursday, Paul McGarry SC, for Mr Delaney, complained that Judge Reynolds had disregarded a report by two court-appointed barristers who read the emails and classified 1,123 as privileged.

Mr McGarry said his client was entitled to know why Judge Reynolds disregarded this assessors’ report. He said Judge Reynolds was wrong to make her ruling without examining any emails herself.

The appeal judges pointed out that Mr Delaney had been found not have supplied information that the High Court ordered him to provide to justify his claims of privilege.

Mr McGarry said Mr Delaney’s former solicitors had refused to supply these details, a reference to A&L Goodbody and Paddy Goodwin, which represented the FAI and Mr Delaney in legal matters.​

Appeal judge Ms Justice Caroline Costello asked why Mr Delaney’s current lawyers could not just do a High Court search for his name to see what cases he was involved in.

James B Dwyer SC, for the CEA, said there was correspondence showing Mr Delaney had made a complaint to the Law Society about A&L Goodbody for its refusal to give him access to FAI case files. Mr Dwyer said A&L responded to say Mr Delaney was never its client.

He said Mr Delaney’s team had more than six months of access to the emails to help make its case.

Included in the emails was correspondence with Rea Walshe, a former FAI solicitor and executive, to discuss “family law/defamation/settlement agreement”. Mr Dwyer said it was “completely a mystery” how an FAI solicitor could be involved in Mr Delaney’s divorce case.

He believed this communication would constitute a waiver of privilege as Mr Delaney sent material to a third party who was not his personal solicitor.

Mr Dwyer suggested the report by the court-appointed lawyers that tagged 1,123 emails as privileged was “infected and coloured” and this was why Judge Reynolds had not followed it.

He said the assessors had received a “clearly wrong” seven-page legal submission from Mr Delaney’s lawyers and this “potentially led them into error”.

The CEA only become aware of the submission after assessors completed their work.

Appeal judges reserved judgment.