Mr. S?amus Dooley:

I agree in relation to literacy. Media literacy is enormously important. The NUJ published a news recovery plan and one of the issues it talked about was a levy on tech giants. I know their financial position is viewed as precarious now but one precarity of that situation is a matter of perspective. The issue of how funding would come through is important. I do not think it can be left to the education system. It is important that people differentiate between social media gossip and informed news and current affairs. People need to be educated. There needs to be clarity around what are independent, verifiable facts and what is the equivalent of what used to be a late night discussion in a pub. That is a very basic definition in regard to media literacy but I agree with the Senator.

The defamation laws are chilling. Every citizen has a right to use them. I have always been opposed to both politicians and journalists using defamation where there are alternative mechanisms they can use. Defamation laws were originally designed as a platform for people who effectively had no other way of seeking redress. Every citizen has a right to their good name and reputation. It would be very wrong to say that because one stands for elected office or because one has a public profile that one cannot use the defamation law. At the same time, I would prefer if those who played a public role used other means of complaint. If I were a politician I would, in the first instance, seek the right of redress of the Press Council, in the case of print. That is the appropriate way, but one cannot, in a democracy, make that compulsory. One cannot say that because someone has a public profile they cannot exercise the right that other people have.

Having said that, no one has a right to automatically appear on a radio station or on television. No one has a right to promote themselves, so I would be careful about getting too excited on the basis of individual incidents. TheSunday Independentwas going to do an exposé of my expenses but they were so poor that they were not worth exposing.