Defamation (Amendment) Bill 2024: Report and Final Stages Seanad Éireann — 2026-01-21 ============================================================ Jim O'Callaghan (FF), Dublin Bay South In respect of Senator Mullen’s question about the public interest, the Constitution delegates the administration of justice to the courts. As the Senator knows, they are not remote entities. The courts have to assess what is in the public interest quite frequently in terms of rulings that come before them and judgments they have to give. They have to do it in the context of privacy and defamation as well. In the case of Nolan v . Sunday Newspapers Limited, it was suggested by the defendant that it was in the public interest to reveal something about a retired former intercounty GAA player, who had not played in about ten years, that was actually defamatory about him and a breach of privacy. The courts did not accept that because it was not a public interest issue. It is difficult, as the Senator will appreciate, for the Legislature to set out what is in the public interest. We cannot formulate an endless list of matters that are in the public interest. We have to defer. We can all state in here what is in the public interest but when it gets to court and the interpretation of a statute, it is for the court to assess what is in the public interest. However, I have to say that the assessment of the court will be very much the same as ours. When it comes to the point about a false statement being made and the right to silence, I may have a different view to the Senators who have spoken in this regard. To use my earlier example, if a reputable broadcaster or publication informs me that it has serious allegations against me and sets them out before me, if they are false, I will rush to say that they are completely wrong. If it goes ahead and publishes it, then it will certainly not be able to get much benefit out of section 26 if I have put forward a coherent response as to why it should not publish it. The advantage to the publisher in court in invoking section 26 is that it can say it went to the person and asked them for an answer but they did not give an answer and never got back to the publisher at all, or that they gave an answer that was demonstrably false. If I go back and give the publisher an answer stating that the story is completely false - I do not have to prove it, but coherently state that to the publisher - then it will be extremely careful about publishing it. The publisher will have difficulty invoking section 26 in that context. With regard to what Senator Craughwell said about people being named, the media can take chances. Sometimes, they are too cautious and nervous. Justice is administered in public. People should be named. There are some occasions when names are not provided, however. There are statutory provisions that say that if the media is going to reveal someone’s medical condition, they will not be named. Obviously, people are not named in family law proceedings. If someone takes a defamation action, one of the consequences of it is that the person has to be named. That can be understood because the individual is saying their reputation is being damaged in the public domain, so of course they should identify themselves. In respect of other persons whose names may come up, one of the consequences of justice is that people are required to be identified unless there are children involved. Obviously, the criminal sphere is different, as the Senator will know. We saw recently some horrific cases on which reporting restrictions were put. We also need to take into account that the High Court has full original jurisdiction. It can decide how its procedures should operate subject, of course, to the constitutional requirement that justice should be administered in public. --- 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/2026-01-21/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:31+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-01-21