Defamation (Amendment) Bill 2024: Committee Stage (Resumed) Seanad Éireann — 2025-12-17 ============================================================ Michael McDowell (IND), National University of Ireland In response to what Senator Gallagher said, I found on one occasion that someone was posting stuff in my name. The funny thing was that they could do so with impunity and when I tried to get it taken down, the Minister should have seen the obstacles that were put in my way, including having to get copies of my passport, sworn declarations and all sorts of things. It is not really to do with defamation, but it should be an offence to impersonate someone else. I fully accept what Senator Gallagher said about the consequences. In my case, the account was putting out views which were the diametric opposite of my views and the gullible would accept them, but that is it. In any event, I think we will wrap up Committee Stage this afternoon. Does the Minister intend to bring Report Stage amendments and will he give us reasonable time to prepare ours? --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2025-12-17/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:28+00:00 Sitting date: 2025-12-17