Mr. Daniel McConnell:

At a national level, the number of cases involving politicians and national media organisations are pretty limited because we generally use the public forum to debate. There is generally a level of interaction between a political, news or editor's desk. If, for example, I or my newspaper goes over the top on a particular politician there is immediate recourse. That is generally how things have tended to happen.

A number of cases have gone to court - I am loath to talk about any live cases - but any case that involves a senior politician going against media is high stakes on both sides. Mr. Kealey and Mr. Ruadhán Mac Cormaic made the point in a briefing in the AV room before Christmas that a defamation case will not serve the plaintiff let alone the defendant well because of the length of time it takes to get to court and the fact that costs escalate. By the time something comes to court, most people have forgotten the original offence. It does not really resolve matters.

Obviously, there has been a lot of commentary in the in the public domain about one political party, but in my experience as editor of the Business Postwe have not had any legal interactions with a politician as of yet. I will not add to the public commentary on that.