Dermot Ahern (Louth, Fianna Fail)

Amendment No. 28 refines the text of amendment No. 34 to use the more correct term "defamatory libel", rather than the previous "criminal libel", which is more of a catch-all phrase for various types of libel. This change has been advised by the Offices of the Attorney General and the Parliamentary Counsel.

Amendment No. 29 provides for a new section to modernise the current law in section 13 of the Defamation Act 1961 in regard to providing sanctions for the constitutional offence of blasphemous libel. Senators should note that, despite what one might read in the papers, the Bill introduces no new statutory offence of criminal and defamatory libel.