Jim O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay South, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I want to make one short comment and ask one short question. We have been speaking a lot about protecting journalists and suggesting they are a separate group. We need to be more precise in our language. I am as guilty in this regard as anyone. The protection that exists in law is a protection of the confidentiality of journalists' sources. That confidentiality and protection is not there for the benefit of journalists because they are journalists; it is there to protect the source in the same way that legal professional privilege is there to protect the confidentiality of the client, not the lawyer. We do a disservice to the debate and to journalists to treat them as a separate group who should be given separate protection. That is not the point, rather it is about protecting their sources.

Having said that, I ask one question of the ICCL. Deputy Wallace asked the ICCL why other legally protected rights should not be recognised in the legislation and one can use the examples of doctors or lawyers. Legal professional privilege is recognised at European Court of Human Rights level. It is not mentioned in the Bill and I do not think journalists are mentioned in it either. Why not, given the point that Deputy Wallace raised? If there is to be protection of the confidentiality of journalistic sources, why should there not also be a protection within the legislation for other legally recognised rights, including legal professional privilege, which is for the benefit of the client not the lawyer?