If the plaintiff in the High Court wants a jury, they get a jury. I am not trying to preach that every case should be decided by a jury or that every case merits a trial by jury.
If the question on whether that wrongdoing did or did not occur merits a jury trial depending on whether the plaintiff is the victim, we have a slightly Alice-in-Wonderland approach if we say that, yes, if the victim had sued, a jury would have to decide this if the plaintiff wanted it but, because it is defamation and the exact same issue is at the heart of the case, a jury cannot be given to a party to the defamation case.
Key terms by TF-IDF across 5,422 words from 8 speakers. The summary quotes the highest-scoring sentences verbatim — nothing is paraphrased.
Tellers: Tá, Senators Michael McDowell and Sharon Keogan; Níl, Senators Cathal Byrne and Paul Daly.
| Question | Result | Tá–Níl |
|---|---|---|
| Amendment put: | Lost | 14–26 |
| Question put: "That section 4 stand part of the Bill." | Carried | 26–14 |
Party shown is the one each member held on 2025-10-01, 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.