THREE years ago, she was at the centre of a media storm. Journalist and author Justine Delaney-Wilson claimed in her first book that a government minister confided to her in a taped interview that he used cocaine. So too did a nun, as did an airline pilot, the latter allegedly snorting coke in the cockpit. These anonymous interviews were printed in The High Society, which investigated drug use among the middle classes, and which was published by Gill and MacMillan in 2007. The media reaction was predictably clamorous. It became the predominant story of fascination for the latter part of 2007 and a media witchhunt to 'out' the offending government minister began in earnest. If, indeed, he or she ever existed.

As the story developed, many began to doubt Delaney-Wilson's sensational claims. The controversy reached its pinnacle when the book's author said she had destroyed the taped interview with the minister, which simultaneously destroyed her credibility. She then disappeared from public life after six months of intense scrutiny.

In the three years that have since passed, Delaney-Wilson has kept a low profile. She gave birth to a baby girl, her third child, and ghost-wrote the book When Spirits Hold My Hand, the true story of clairvoyant Margaret Brazil. Delaney-Wilson has now almost completed her first novel, An Ordinary Face, a story set in contemporary times about an Irish family's resilience in the face of difficulties.

She still stands over the claims made in The High Society but admits the controversy hurt her reputation. "I think it did probably damage my credibility as a journalist," she tells the Sunday Tribune. "I'm not in a hurry to return to non-fiction. It might be hard for me to do so. I don't regret doing it [The High Society]. But if I had the time again, I would have someone on my side to advise me legally from the beginning. There was a naïvety on my part."

Does she think the public ever believed that she interviewed a government minister who admitted using cocaine? "I think people probably think I'm a spoofer. But I think people have forgotten all about me."

Delaney-Wilson was a relatively unknown journalist when The High Society was published.

"People wondered why some of these people agreed to be interviewed. Maybe it was because I was unknown. I was the only person who ever had the tape [of the government minister]."

The High Society was turned into a television series on RTÉ, which dragged the state broadcaster into the controversy. Delaney-Wilson says she never revealed the identity of her government minister source to RTé and was unhappy by statements the station made claiming to know who this individual was. "There were a lot of contradictory statements put out at the time. It became such a media frenzy. The focus switched to me and to this politician."

With the benefit of hindsight, was destroying the tape of the government minister a bad idea? "I spoke to my family solicitor. He advised me to destroy the tape and to send him a letter confirming I'd destroyed it. The situation had become huge. I was afraid it would end up on YouTube or something like that. No, I don't regret destroying it. The fallout of destroying it was on me, my reputation. It's unfathomable what could have happened to people's careers and lives if the tape ever came out. The pressure was growing and growing."

Doubting tape's existence

But she says she can understand why some people might doubt the tape's existence. "I do understand. But people should accept that a publisher like Gill and Macmillan wouldn't publish something like that lightly either."

Gill and Macmillan was handed over some of the less sensitive tapes, where interviewees were unidentifiable and not high profile, as well as contemporaneous notes from other interviews, she says. "People have asked was there not someone I could have given the tape to for safekeeping. But I genuinely don't believe there was a safe place for that tape. I would never have meant it to come into the public domain anyway, so what would have been the point in having it in safekeeping?"

Delaney-Wilson has moved on from the controversy that engulfed her. But she knows it has affected her career. Her daughter was born with a heart defect and had to undergo open-heart surgery, so that put the furore over her book into perspective, she says. "What happened did make it difficult for me to get hired. People would not want my name on a proposal going to RTé. But yes, I have left it all behind now. I just get on with it. It did leave a bad taste in my mouth. It showed me how people can act when they're under pressure. I don't talk about what happened very often. This is the first time I've talked about it in a long time."

Damaged reputation

Her novel is almost complete, she says, and a UK agent and publisher have expressed interest. "It will probably be published next year," she says. Her name is conspicuously absent from the book she ghost-wrote on behalf of clairvoyant Margaret Brazil, which was published by Poolbeg last year.

"I knew Margaret slightly and she asked me to do it. Poolbeg agreed. I asked for my name not to be on the book. I didn't want it to detract from Margaret and make a circus out of her book. It is her story."

Despite the damage to her reputation, Delaney-Wilson believes that one good thing to arise out of the controversy surrounding her book was a realisation of the extent of the cocaine problem in Ireland. "There was an increase in queries by users to treatment centres. It really put the issue of cocaine abuse out there."

There's really only one question left to ask. Did she ever hear from the government minister again? She smiles. "No. I only heard from one of the people I interviewed, an accountant. They must have all been terrified."