NEWS WEBSITE GRIPT has filed legal action against Dublin City University and the Press Council following a decision by the latter to uphold two complaints made by the university against Gript.

Gript filed the High Court action yesterday, naming DCU and the Press Council as defendants in the case.

The complaint was in relation to two articles published on 4 and 24 October 2024 by Gript about a postgraduate diploma course in SPHE/RSE run by DCU for secondary school teachers.

The Gript articles were based on testimony by former SPHE teacher Mary Creedon. In its correspondence with the Press Ombudsman and Press Council, Gript said it also reviewed documents and other materials and relied on statements from other unnamed course participants.

Creedon had falsely claimed that she was expected to teach extreme sexual material to children. 

There was also discourse over the use of an audio clip by Gript that was “obtained through subterfuge” that the Press Ombudsman ultimately said was not justified to have been publicised and did not reveal information that substantiated Gript’s reporting.

In a decision in May, the Press Ombudsman upheld DCU’s complaint and remarked that Gript provided “no evidence” that the DCU course “gave adult teachers to understand that sexually explicit exercises used during their training were to be replicated in school classrooms”.

“Adaptation of material so that it is age appropriate is not replication and to suggest otherwise, as the publication does, is distortion,” said the Press Ombudsman.

The decision was appealed by Gript to the Press Council.

The Press Council appoints the Press Ombudsman and decides on appeals related to decisions of the Ombudsman.

Gript had claimed that there had been an error in the Press Ombudsman’s application of the Truth and Accuracy, Fair Procedures and Honesty, and Privacy principles in the Press Council’s Code of Practice.

However, the Press Council last month upheld the decision by the Press Ombudsman and said the Ombudsman didn’t err in their application of these principles.

In a statement on Monday, DCU welcomed the decisions.

It noted that the Press Ombudsman found that the Gript articles “contained no evidence that DCU was doing anything other than running a postgraduate course to enable adult teachers of SPHE/RSE to teach the subject to secondary school children”.