The Court of Appeal has reserved judgment on Brian Meehan's bid to have his conviction for murdering journalist Veronica Guerin declared a miscarriage of justice.
Meehan, 47, from Crumlin in Dublin, is serving a life sentence in Portlaoise Prison having being convicted by the Special Criminal Court in July 1999 of the murder of Ms Guerin in June 1996 following a 31-day trial.
He was also jailed on drugs and firearms charges.
Meehan has applied to quash his 1999 murder conviction on the basis of alleged new facts.
The new evidence concerns matters which emerged in the course of the 2001 Special Criminal Court trial of John Gilligan at the close of which Gilligan was ultimately acquitted of Ms Guerin's murder.
Counsel for Meehan Hugh Hartnett, SC, told the Court of Appeal yesterday that the Special Criminal Court which tried his client relied on the evidence of an "admitted accomplice" and protected witness, Russell Warren.
The court recognised that a statement from Marion Finnegan, who said she saw someone standing on the steps of Naas courthouse on the date in question, strongly supported Mr Warren's account.
However, it emerged at the end of Gilligan's trial that Mr Warren had been put on an identification parade in front of Ms Finnegan shortly after the shooting and she had not identified him.
Her failure to identify him in the line-up was unknown to the defence, unknown to the court and presumably, Mr Hartnett said, unknown to the prosecution.
Mr Hartnett submitted that this was a new fact.
Counsel for the Director of Public Prosecutions Paul Anthony McDermott, SC, told the Court of Appeal this morning that Meehan's application was an "abuse of process".
Mr McDermott asked what a person from another country would think upon seeing this case in court on this date. Had there been a cold case review, they might wonder.
Had some piece of DNA evidence come to light or had someone made a deathbed confession, Mr McDermott asked, only for them to be told that it was an application under section 2 of the Criminal Procedure Act based on nothing new since the criminal trial and nothing new since the appeal.
The thesis as to why Meehan's bid fell under section 2 of the Criminal Procedure Act was that at the first trial evidence was not appreciated, counsel said.
It became a "non-appreciation application" out of necessity because that is all that was left to him, Mr McDermott said.
The thesis seemed to be that the outcome of the Gilligan trial showed some of the disclosure was more important than Meehan's lawyers realised at the time.
He said Meehan was asking the Court of Appeal to become a "roving truth and reconcilliation commission" which, in looking for justice, departs from everything that happened.
Responding, Mr Hartnett said the DPP was avoiding the fact that the original trial court did not know about the failed identification parade.
That most primary fact, which was of "huge significance", had been ignored by the DPP's lawyers in their submissions, he said.
Mr Hartnett said the time that had passed was irrelevant. If there was a glimmer of unfairness in a trial then it did not matter when the Court of Appeal looked at it.
Mr Justice George Birmingham, who sat with Mr Justice Alan Mahon and Mr Justice John Edwards, said the court would reserve judgement.
