Day 173 - 16 Oct 95 - Page 04
1 witnesses. Since the Plaintiffs have had over two years to
2 check their files for those documents and the massive legal
3 team they have got to do all this for them, we trust that
4 they will not be complaining about late service of
5 documents by us again, because it would be utterly
6 hypocritical. We are not actually taking a formal
7 objection to the documents at present, although we do
8 object to the fact that they are served very late in the
9 day with no time to send copies to our witnesses.
10
11 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes.
12
13 MR. RAMPTON: My Lord, I decline to play tit for tat. My Lord,
14 can I tell your Lordship something about the new documents,
15 not in explanation of their lateness -- for which
16 I apologise. There is a perfectly good explanation but,
17 unless your Lordship wishes me to do so, I do not say
18 anything about that. My Lord, they are to go, we think for
19 the moment at least, as tab 59A in pink file XIII B; in
20 other words, behind the existing Dublin file for 1979. We
21 have numbered them 1 to 24. The copy of page 3, which is a
22 handwritten list of wage rates, is not really good because
23 it is covered from the right-hand side. So what we have
24 done is to have it recopied; and, if I may, I will hand out
25 copies which show the whole of the right-hand column, to
26 replace the existing page 3. (Handed) Then there are -----
27
28 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Just let me read this.
29
30 MR. RAMPTON: There are some amendments to be made to
31 Mr. Mehigan's statement. Two of them are obviously
32 typographical errors, or minor errors of fact. There are,
33 however, two which Mr. Mehigan would like to have made.
34 I do not intend to read out his statement. I intend merely
35 to ask him whether he avers it, after having asked him some
36 introductory biographical questions about his experience.
37
38 My Lord, the first one is on page 2 in paragraph 8, at the
39 bottom of the page. The year is wrong; it should be 1979,
40 not 1989. I expect everybody has made that alteration,
41 anyway. Equally, at the top of page 3, same paragraph
42 number, second line: "The dispute was resolved in", not
43 July; it should be September of that year.
44
45 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes.
46
47 MR. RAMPTON: Then a somewhat more substantial alteration,
48 page 7, paragraph 18.
49
50 MS. STEEL: Is that the page at the top?
51
52 MR. RAMPTON: The top. Paragraph 18: "My meeting with the ITGWU
53 on 10th September 1979 was the only occasion on which I met
54 with them. Since that date, I have never been requested by
55 the union or my staff or negotiated with the union on their
56 behalf." In the light of two letters in the new bundle of
57 documents, pages 16 and 17, Mr. Mehigan feels that there
58 should be inserted a parenthesis after the word "union" in
59 that third line paragraph 18, to this effect -- and I will
60 read it at dictation speed: "(except on one occasion in
