Defamation (Amendment) Bill 2024: Report and Final Stages
Seanad Éireann — 2026-01-21
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Michael McDowell (IND), National University of Ireland

I move amendment No. 5:
In page 8, line 26, before “an inquiry” to insert “a statement or”.
This is an amendment that I genuinely believe the Minister should take on board. The defence being offered on page 8 to shopkeepers by the new section 8, amending section 18 of the principal Act, says the protection offered by that section is restricted to an inquiry as to whether the person who made the statement had paid for the goods or services or obtained services or had in his possession goods, proof of payment for services or a statement that the means of payment proffered by the person with the statement concerned was unable to be or not capable of being accepted and was not published excessively. In the real world, people may not just make a polite inquiry. They may say “That has not been paid for”. A shopkeeper may do that.
They are in a different position. They cannot avail of this statutory amendment to the law of qualified privilege. I consider that it should be that the statement consists of a statement as to whether the person whom the statement concerned had paid for goods or services. In the real world, to say "That has not been paid for" is effectively the same as "Have you paid for that?", in front of other customers. Store detectives, staff and the like who see somebody go back to a shelf and substitute goods into a basket or whatever may say, "That has not been paid for." I cannot understand why the Minister has restricted this provision to a situation where only an inquiry is made as to whether the person paid for it. I cannot see any useful purpose of confining it to that because in the real world, people in shops will, in fact, say frequently, "That has not been paid for." I fully accept that they may be entitled to general protection on the basis that it was qualified privilege on a different front but insofar as the Minister is now saying that he is coming to the aid of beleaguered shopkeepers, to confine the defamatory statement to one which constitutes an inquiry is unnecessarily narrow and the word "inquiry" should be "statement".

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-01-21/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:31+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-01-21