Defamation (Amendment) Bill 2024: Report and Final Stages
Seanad Éireann — 2026-01-21
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Jim O'Callaghan (FF), Dublin Bay South

I will start by stating that in order for this section 26 defence to succeed, there is a requirement that the statement in respect of which an action is brought must relate to a matter of public interest. There is also a requirement that the defendant reasonably believes that publishing the statement is in the public interest and that this is done in good faith. These are all necessary requirements before we even get to consideration of subsection (3), which the Senators' amendment seeks to remove.
Senator Mullen asked me to set out an example of how subsection (3) will apply. I gave the example earlier. I do not want to use too many domestic examples, but in terms of the dispute between President Trump and Mr. Musk, whom I use as an example because they are not listening and everyone will feel comfortable with me doing so, that was a serious dispute between two individuals. Obviously, that dispute was in the public interest, I would have thought, even though it was an international issue. I am using it as an example. Obviously, there are all sorts of jurisdictional issues as to whether the Irish courts would have jurisdiction, but that is an example of a dispute between two public figures where it is in the public interest for it to be reported upon. Very serious allegations were made by one of them that the other was taking serious drugs. In that circumstance, one would have thought that a publisher should be entitled to impartially and accurately publish the details of that the, because it is in the public domain, without having to find out the nature of the allegation President Trump made about Mr. Musk, correct or not, or contact Mr. Musk to get his side of the story before publishing details of the dispute. What is in the public interest is the dispute itself. There are certain times when it is in the public interest to publish details of a dispute between public figures in the newspapers or in broadcast media without a newspaper or a broadcaster having to verify whether the details are true or not.
This was recommended in the review of the 2009 Act. I think I also dealt with that on Committee Stage. However, the important part of the provision is that the defence will only apply where there is an accurate and impartial account of a dispute. Unfortunately, I cannot accept the amendment.
It is difficult to predict the type of scenario that will arise when this provision will be invoked. I could, but will not, give domestic examples of public disputes that could be reported on, but they also exist.

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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