{"id":126334,"date":"2025-10-16T18:03:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-16T18:03:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/126334\/"},"modified":"2025-10-16T18:03:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-16T18:03:07","slug":"humphreys-takes-legal-advice-as-paul-murphy-launches-defamation-case-over-debate-remarks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/126334\/","title":{"rendered":"Humphreys takes legal advice as Paul Murphy launches defamation case over debate remarks"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fine Gael presidential candidate<\/a> Heather Humphreys is to take legal advice, after People Before Profit TD Paul Murphy formally launched a defamation case over her comments during a debate<\/a> last Sunday.<\/p>\n

Filings say Mr Murphy\u2019s solicitors issued formal legal proceedings at the High Court on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Ms Humphreys made the comments during a debate on RT\u00c9 radio on Sunday, referring to an incident in Jobstown in 2014 involving former Labour Party leader Joan Burton.<\/p>\n

In 2017, Mr Murphy was found not guilty<\/a> of false imprisonment of Ms Burton.<\/p>\n

A legal letter was sent to Ms Humphreys on Monday evening, calling on the Fine Gael candidate to withdraw the remarks and apologise to Mr Murphy. It also calls on Ms Humphreys to meet Mr Murphy\u2019s legal costs.<\/p>\n

In the letter, Mr Murphy\u2019s legal team said Ms Humphreys had accused him of engaging in \u201cviolent criminal conduct\u201d, that he had committed \u201can act of gender-based violence\u201d and that he was a \u201cmisogynist.”<\/p>\n

Mr Murphy\u2019s solicitors added Ms Humphreys’ comments were \u201cgrossly defamatory\u201d and he had \u201csuffered in his character and reputation.”<\/p>\n

The letter adds Mr Murphy had been exposed to \u201codium, ridicule, and contempt.”<\/p>\n

It is understood Mr Murphy has retained two senior counsel who worked on the Jobstown trial, with both Michael O\u2019Higgins SC and R\u00f3is\u00edn Lacey SC taking the case.<\/p>\n

\n Speaking on RT\u00c9\u2019s News at One on Thursday, Ms Humphreys said she accepted the decision made by the courts, however, she criticised Mr Murphy for launching the legal case.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cOf course, this is the tactic of the hard left and Sinn F\u00e9in when they don\u2019t like what you say, they take to the courts,\u201d Ms Humphreys said\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cThere were two women who were victims that day.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n In the interview, Ms Humphreys asserted that Mr Murphy was Ms Connolly\u2019s campaign manager.\n <\/p>\n

\n However, the Connolly campaign rejected this assertion and said Mr Murphy did not have a management role within the campaign.\n <\/p>\n

\n It is understood the Connolly campaign has issued multiple corrections to RT\u00c9 over Ms Humphrey\u2019s assertions.\n <\/p>\n

\n Later on Thursday, Ms Humphreys said Mr Murphy was entitled to take a case.\n <\/p>\n

\n He was not a victim on the day of the 2014 incident, she added.\u00a0She confirmed she would be taking legal advice on the matter.<\/p>\n

\n \u201cIt\u2019s not going to put me off in my campaign,\u201d Ms Humphreys said.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cI\u2019m going to plough on and I\u2019m going to get out to talk to the people and put my message forward as to why I want to be the next President of Ireland.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Asked if she believed this was a tactic, Ms Humphreys said she did not know what Mr Murphy was doing.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cHe\u2019s entitled to do whatever he wishes. But I do know when that event happened in Jobstown, he wasn\u2019t sitting at home watching the television.\u201d\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fine Gael presidential candidate Heather Humphreys is to take legal advice, after People Before Profit TD Paul Murphy…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":126335,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[4488,9,10,18,13,14,6,19,17,11,12,15,16,5,59,7,8],"class_list":{"0":"post-126334","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-irish-examiner-instagram","9":"tag-breaking-news","10":"tag-breakingnews","11":"tag-eire","12":"tag-featured-news","13":"tag-featurednews","14":"tag-headlines","15":"tag-ie","16":"tag-ireland","17":"tag-latest-news","18":"tag-latestnews","19":"tag-main-news","20":"tag-mainnews","21":"tag-news","22":"tag-presidential-election","23":"tag-top-stories","24":"tag-topstories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126334","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=126334"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126334\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/126335"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=126334"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=126334"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=126334"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}