Dana Rosemary Scallon said she felt she had beentreated with an “anti-Christian bias” by the media after she won a defamation settlement against the Irish Times and Facebook’s parent company, Meta.

The Eurovision winner and former MEP’s case arose from media coverage of the trial of her brother John Brown, who was acquitted in 2014 of sexual abuse charges dating back to the 1970s.

While the settlement terms are confidential, Dana said on Tuesday that it had been a long 14 years spent in courts dealing with cases which she said could have been settled many years ago.

“Sadly, I believe, over the past decades my beliefs and my personal faith were widely targeted, with a hostile and virulent anti-Catholic and anti-Christian bias,” she said.