I listened very carefully to the Minister's response to amendments Nos. 20 to 27. It reminded me of many years ago when I was at the same school as the Minister. I was not particularly athletic and I was scoring in a cricket match against St. Mary’s College. The captain of the Gonzaga team came over to me and said, “We are a man short, will you go in and bat?”. I told him I had never batted in my life. I had glasses at the time and the whole thing was a highly dangerous proposition. He said "You have got to do it, …

The Minister comes into the Seanad and says that, on principle, he cannot accept any amendments tendered to any part of the Bill so far. I am beginning to suspect that his plan is to pass it without even having to bring it back to Dáil Éireann. I am beginning to suspect that is the strategy. If the Minister were to tell me he even had his own Report Stage amendments to deal with something I may never even have raised, I would be interested to hear that. I feel we are dealing with the batsman blocking here. It is si…

It is shocking. This is the legislation they have been pleading for. I will say one thing to the representatives of the newspapers who are in the Public Gallery. They at least should be strong on defending citizens' rights in the context of the anonymous publication of details on the Internet. They carry a different burden, as the Minister conceded. They cannot publish a defamatory letter or repeat a defamatory statement without there being editorial and legal consequences. We are trying to do something to reverse …

You are.

Last week the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Justice, Home Affairs and Migration delivered a report on the Government's proposed legislation to ratify the European migration pact. The committee recommended that the Government, on Ireland's behalf, should opt out of most of the provisions of the pact, the reason being that they did not believe it was credible that Ireland could actually deliver on its obligations under the pact, particularly to open detention centres and deal with all applications within three months…

I fully support the idea of alternative dispute resolution, ADR, procedures. Can the Minister indicate whether he is happy that media which are not part of the Press Council are adequately dealt with in the definition of specified ADR procedures, because there will be journals and foreign newspapers and the like which may not be part of the Press Council? I am just worried as to whether the proposed new section 34M will cover such cases, but I would like to hear that from the Minister.

I am glad the Minister is saying that. However, my point was simply relating to the provision in section 34N that in "awarding costs in respect of proceedings in respect of which the court issued an invitation under section 34M(1)(a)", which is for specified ADR procedures, the court may, "where it considers it just", have regard to the factors set out thereunder. The Minister might give this further consideration between now and Report Stage. I fully understand why the provision is drafted as it is but it seems to…

It seems to me the obligation that is cast on solicitors to inform their clients and execute a statutory declaration would not have application if it were a case, say, against an English or Northern Irish newspaper, The Economist magazine or something like that. I just think the Minister could profitably widen the scope of the provision.

I move amendment No. 20: In page 21, line 30, after "Court" to insert "and the High Court". This series of amendments in my name are intended to improve the identification order provisions proposed in section 22. I support the provision in the Bill for a workable, simple and inexpensive means whereby people who are defamed anonymously on social media can identify the defamer insofar as that is possible. It is important that anonymous defamation should be discouraged, obviously, and that anonymous defamers should be…

I will address the points raised by Senator Mullen. The reason the word "seriously" was included in the amendment was that at the time I tabled these amendments, a seriousness test was being suggested for other sections. To my surprise, the Minister indicated that the Office of the Attorney General had constitutional doubts about inserting the seriousness threshold into Irish defamation law on the basis that it could infringe unnecessarily on the good name guarantees given under the Constitution to citizens. I simp…

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this subject and welcome the tone in which this debate has been carried on so far. It seems to me that, although I admired him greatly, Seamus Mallon was incorrect in one matter, and I am glad the Minister of State has stated that. I refer to this notion that somehow it would be better had the Good Friday Agreement stipulated something more than 51-49 and given more of a comfort cushion to unionism and that somehow this would have been more conducive to better relations in Nort…

I welcome the Minister of State. I echo what Senator O'Reilly has said about the Minister of State and his approach to debates of this kind. I have a number of points to make in relation to this Bill that the Minister of State might not like to hear. First, whereas Senator O'Reilly calls it a prudent Bill and suggests it is a conservative measure in times of economic turbulence, I think there are aspects of the Finance Bill and the budgetary strategy of the Government that need to be fundamentally challenged. The a…

It is my fourth, is it? Well, good.

I am glad I am being productive. My fourth point then is this, and it may surprise some people. The time has come to deal comprehensively with non-doms in Ireland. It is not right or fair that factory workers pay fairly hefty tax rates but other people can just skip off to Malta, Portugal or wherever else and pay no tax to the State on their income. Believe it or not, when the Progressive Democrats were in office, Mary Harney and I came to the Government with a proposal for a minimum tax rate to apply to all Irish …

I move amendment No. 10: In page 12, between lines 7 and 8, to insert the following: “ ‘live broadcast’ includes a broadcast where a short time delay between the utterance of any spoken matter and its broadcast is created for editorial purposes or control;”. One of the things that occurred to me about the Minister's amendment, which I support in principle but which needs to be debated, is that the concept of a live broadcast is that effectively as people speak in a studio or whatever or at a demonstration or wherev…

I appreciate what the Minister is saying about the use of the term "live broadcast" but it is referred to in the first line of section 27A as the title of the defence. I do not think the offside rule, so to speak, applies to our drafting in that respect. The simple fact is that the broadcast of a live programme is not defined at all in the section. In defence of our drafting, line 2 on page 11 refers to a "live broadcast defence". We are saying that when used in this context it would include the short break provisi…

That is not agreed because it needs to be more carefully considered. I can well imagine a panel discussion or interview where someone says something defamatory and the words are out before the interviewer can stop the defamation. I remember in particular a defamation by the late Nell McCafferty about my then colleague, former Deputy Mary Harney. Nell McCafferty, on live radio, made a grossly defamatory accusation which had no substance to it at all. I can well imagine circumstances like that and there should be som…

Let us be clear about this. We live in the real world, and the Minister and I have both been involved in defamation cases. To say that somebody can get a correction order against a man of straw, a teenager who has blurted out something on a live broadcast, is illusory. The cost of doing so would be massive and there would be nobody to pay for it, not even the broadcaster. It is not the case that the person who blurts out the remark is always a mark for damages or for any other form of redress, including correction …

To follow on from what Senator Mullen said, I would be impressed by this section if among the criteria set out in subsection (2) for a court to have regard to was the response of the broadcaster during the programme and after the programme to the defamation which has taken place. When one thinks about it, if something dreadful is said on an audience participation programme at 10 o'clock on a Monday evening, why should RTÉ or Virgin Media, if they want to avail of this defence, not have to convey to a court that as …

I think there is another minor problem with this section, now that I look at it and listen to the Minister's defence of it. Section 27A(1) has to be looked at very carefully. It states: It shall be a defence (to be known as the ‘live broadcast defence’) to a defamation action that relates to a statement published by a relevant person during the broadcast of a live programme for the broadcaster of the programme to prove [this is the point] that, in advance of and during that broadcast, the broadcaster took reasonabl…