A jury has failed to reach a verdict in a defamation case taken by Waterford Senator Paudie Coffey.

A retrial may now occur with the legal costs to be determined on the basis of its outcome.

The Fine Gael senator, took the case against the Kilkenny People over an article published in January 2016 which bore the headline ‘Coffey the Robber’.

The trial, which was expected to last four days, instead lasted for 13 and is likely to have involved legal fees of up to €300,000 on each side.

It was the longest defamation trial involving a politician and a media organisation since the 2001 case where Beverley Cooper Flynn lost a case against RTÉ.