Mr. S?amus Dooley:

It is problematic because I do not think we can have a voluntary system but that we require politicians, by virtue of standing for public office, to sign up to a charter. I can see that there are difficulties in that. Public figures have a right, and some defamation cases are legitimate. I also think that in some perspectives we need to take one step back away from the charter idea, but I would certainly appeal to politicians always to use the mechanism of the Press Council of Ireland. I think what would happen is that some politicians would refuse to sign the charter or some political individuals would refuse to sign it and then the Press Council of Ireland would actually become a political football in terms of whether a person had or had not signed the charter, and that is not in the interests of the council either. I can, therefore, see a difficulty around that. I agree with the principle, however.

It is important to say, and we have not really dealt with it adequately, that mediation and the early mediation system that works in the council is the most effective bit. When we talk about mediation, as Dr. John Horgan, the first ombudsman, said, sometimes mediation means a call from the editor or news editor to say, "Senator Carrigy, I got it wrong" and that is the end of it. Most people who contact the Press Council of Ireland are not gold-diggers. They are genuinely people who buy their newspapers from the editors and their colleagues in the distribution business. They merely want an acknowledgment. That is actually the bread and butter of the Press Council of Ireland.