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

The amendment simply says that the ordinary rule as to costs following the event subject to the certain exceptions, which are set out in section 169 of the Legal Services Regulation Act 2015, will "apply in relation to the costs of any application for an identification order." I do not accept the proposition that X should ever be entitled to its costs. If somebody comes to court and goes through all the hoops of saying, "I have been defamed. The Defamation Act will probably succeed. I do not know and cannot find out who the anonymous poster was." Still, after that, X comes into court and says, "I want my costs against the plaintiff." I think that is an unjustifiable obstacle to throw in the path of a plaintiff who simply wants to know who took to social media to defame him or her and section 169 of the Legal Services Regulation Act affords flexibility in this matter.
The notion that a body like X can come to court and say it wants its costs for identifying the anonymous defamer is, in my view, unfair and an unwarranted obstacle to put in the path of somebody whose lawful rights to their reputation have been, on the face of it, violated.

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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