Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 20 June 2023

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality

General Scheme of the Defamation (Amendment) Bill: Department of Justice

Mr. Tom Murphy:

On the point about how retailers should deal with customers, my understanding of the law is there is already an applied law that if you approach the situation in the correct manner and deal with people in a respectful way, you are covered by qualified privilege. What that seems to be doing is to try to implement it on a statutory basis. There is a provision in existing law for qualified privilege. That is somewhat of an amplification of that. That law has always been the way.