Defamation (Amendment) Bill 2024: Committee Stage (Resumed)
Seanad Éireann — 2025-11-12
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Michael McDowell (IND), National University of Ireland

I think there is another minor problem with this section, now that I look at it and listen to the Minister's defence of it. Section 27A(1) has to be looked at very carefully. It states:
It shall be a defence (to be known as the ‘live broadcast defence’) to a defamation action that relates to a statement published by a relevant person during the broadcast of a live programme for the broadcaster of the programme to prove [this is the point] that, in advance of and during that broadcast, the broadcaster took reasonable and prudent precautions to prevent the publication by a relevant person of a defamatory statement during the live programme.
It is only about prevention. That is the point I am making to the Minister. Once the statement is made and is out there, there is no obligation, even under subparagraph (e) of section 27A(2), to say, “Hold it; you should not have said that; that is an outrageous statement”, or anything like that. There is no obligation to do that. It is purely about the failure to prevent the thing from happening in the first place. I think that could be looked at again. If we are going to give a defence to programme makers to say that once it is out there, once it has been said, the duty of care evaporates, that cannot be right. The duty of care kicks in immediately that the apparent wrong appears to have been done.
The Minister says that live programmes are more exciting. I do not know. The average punter watching “Questions and Answers” or whatever programme you want does not know whether it is live. They are not out there in the studio. They have not seen whether it was recorded an hour before. It may be more exciting. I will tell the Minister where it really is exciting: when you are sitting there as a panellist, saying, “Oh my God, what are they thinking at home?” as this is done to you, or as a contributor breaks down in tears and accuses you of being callous or something like that. How am I to look when this is happening straight in front of me? That is exciting but it may not be very fair.
In relation to the media, I was reminded by the whole question of editors that Andrew Neil, the former editor of The Sunday Times , apparently went to Moscow and was introduced there as the editor emeritus of the London Times . The Russian interviewer asked him what was meant by “ emeritus ”. He said it comes from the Latin - " e " means you are out and " meritus" means you deserved it.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2025-11-12/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:18+00:00
Sitting date: 2025-11-12