Defamation (Amendment) Bill 2024: Committee Stage (Resumed)
Seanad Éireann — 2025-12-11
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Gerard P. Craughwell (IND), Labour Panel

Senator McDowell raised a number of interesting points. I will start with the simplest. A long-standing tradition in the trade union movement back in the good old days when I was involved in trade unionism was to always resolve an issue at the lowest possible level. The Bill should enable me to write to a service provider and say, "I believe I have been defamed on your platform. I wonder if you could give me the name and address of the individual involved." Only then, on a refusal, should I have to look for legal representation. My solicitor should be the next port of call. After that, it would be the courts, if that is the way I have to go. That is in favour of the ordinary citizen who has limited funds going up against these ginormous concerns. Let me give an example. If somebody sends me an email today saying that Joe Bloggs is a paedophile and I say that everybody in south Dublin needs to know this, so I send out a message to everyone on my massive email list saying that I have been informed that Joe Bloggs is a paedophile in circumstances where Joe Bloggs is not actually a paedophile and is a fine, upstanding citizen, have I defamed him by rebroadcasting information I am not capable of proving? Am I liable? I run a website - most of us do. If I am looking at social media tonight and I see something about a Member of this House, if I decide to take a screenshot and put it up on my website, I am only a conduit. I am only putting up on my website what I saw on a social media site. The social media site is not liable. That is what the Minister is telling us. Am I liable because I just put up a screenshot of a social media post on my website?

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2025-12-11/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:27+00:00
Sitting date: 2025-12-11