The High Court has ordered Associated Newspapers to pay a Dublin woman €90,000 in damages after finding that a number of articles printed about her private life breached her right to privacy.

The articles, published in Ireland on Sunday in 2003, detailed the contents of private telephone conversations she had with her lover, a priest who has since left the priesthood.

The first article bore the headline "Husband accuses priest of dirty dealing with his wife."

Ms Justice Dunne said the publication of the transcripts of the conversations, which were given to the paper by her estranged husband, were a deliberate, conscious and unjustified breach of her right to privacy.

The judge, in ruling on the damages issue, said she accepted the marriage of the woman and her husband had broken up before her relationship with the priest started.

Justice Dunne said no real effort was made by the paper to get the woman's side of the story.

The court heard that the woman's husband hired a private eye to spy on his wife and the priest and tape their intimate conversations.