While the Bill contains important provisions with regard to strategic lawsuits against public participation, SLAPPs, for example, and Sinn Féin remains willing to engage constructively with the Minister in relation to defamation reform or any other matter, we oppose the removal of juries from defamation trials. I would point out that if you take a Circuit Court action for defamation, you do not get a jury. When we look at it, it is removing juries from the High Court in defamation actions.
If somebody defames Deputy Kelly, Deputy Boyd Barrett or Deputy Ward, and it is a bad defamation, and they go to a lawyer and ask what a court will award them, it is very difficult to advise them what will be awarded if they go before a High Court jury. It is the case, by the way, that in the Circuit Court people can get damages of up to €65,000 or €75,000 in a defamation case.
Key terms by TF-IDF across 1,614 words from 5 speakers. The summary quotes the highest-scoring sentences verbatim — nothing is paraphrased.
Tellers: Tá, Deputies Mary Butler and Emer Currie; Níl, Deputies Richard Boyd Barrett and Alan Kelly.
| Question | Result | Tá–Níl |
|---|---|---|
| Question put: | Carried | 73–68 |
| Amendment put: | Lost | 69–81 |
| Amendment put: | Lost | 69–81 |
| Question again put: | Carried | 80–70 |
| Amendment put: | Carried | 82–68 |
| Amendment put: | Carried | 89–61 |
| Question put: "That the motion, as amended, be agreed to." | Carried | 88–61 |
| Amendment put: | Carried | 80–69 |
| Question put: "That the motion, as amended, be agreed to." | Carried | 80–69 |
Party shown is the one each member held on 2026-02-11, frozen by a dated join — not their party today. The Oireachtas API publishes no date of birth and returns an empty gender field for every member in this period, so no age or gender breakdown is shown.