Mr. Michael Kealey:

Could I make one point on SLAPPs? There is hope that we will have EU legislation. We hope it will be incorporated into the new Bill that is going through. It will not work properly unless there is a serious harm test. If there is no serious harm test, it will be said there is absolutely no threshold. If I have a limited connection to Ireland and three people have read a particular story online in Ireland, and if there is no serious harm test, the SLAPP thing will not work. People will say they are entitled to sue, that there is no serious harm test, and that you can talk all you want. One of the problems with SLAPPs is the defamation. If we feel it is a SLAPP, every other person feels he has got a legitimate claim. Unless we have a serious harm test, SLAPPs will not work. As we have said in our submission, it is a mystery to us why a serious harm test has been introduced for retail and corporate bodies but not for the media.