Defamation (Amendment) Bill 2024: Committee Stage
Dail Éireann — 2025-04-30
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Paul Nicholas Gogarty (IND), Dublin Mid-West

I am generally supportive of this Bill and, unlike some of my colleagues, I see the rationale in not having juries for certain types of defamation cases. However, I have a query about the corporate entity issue, which is a follow up on what other Deputies said. Let us say there is a chain of hardware stores - let us call them Fianna Fáil hardware - and it is owned by Joe Bloggs. Let us also say Fianna Fáil hardware had a couple of defective pots of paints or whatever, but because it is the only hardware store in the town where it sells, the sales do not decrease. Right-thinking members of society, however, are starting to shun and avoid Joe Bloggs who owns the hardware stores. Is it the case the owner of a hardware store has to take a personal defamation claim, even though the complaints are made against the corporate entity, which is the hardware store? Where is the dividing line?

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2025-04-30/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:53:44+00:00
Sitting date: 2025-04-30