Defamation (Amendment) Bill 2024: Committee Stage (Resumed)
Seanad Éireann — 2025-10-01
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Jim O'Callaghan (FF), Dublin Bay South

I will make a brief one. I suppose the point Senator Stephenson is making is a court could direct that a defamation action would be heard with a jury, if it were in the interests of justice to make such an order. Again, how is a court supposed to determine that one case should be heard by a jury in the interests of justice and the other should not? We would need to have a statutory scheme set out that would inform a court what are the interests of justice that would need to be taken into account. Otherwise, we would just be saying to a High Court judge whether he or she thinks it is in the interests of justice to hear a case with a jury. Again, there will be circumstances where the plaintiff may argue that it is in the interests of justice for it to be heard by a jury perhaps because the plaintiff is a controversial, well-known person, but that is not an adequate reason for a court to state it is in the interests of justice for a jury to determine this. Notwithstanding the effort made by Senator Stephenson in tabling the amendment, there is insufficient clarity within it to enable a court to determine what the interests of justice are that would designate that a jury should be allowed in a particular case. I have to oppose the amendment.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2025-10-01/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:10+00:00
Sitting date: 2025-10-01