James Lawless (Kildare North, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

To tease this out, the reason it is being posited is that the commentary has consistently been that juries are unpredictable, inconsistent and irrational. These things have been suggested. If that is the case, a compromise proposal would be to take the function of awarding damages away from the jury and give it to a legal expert, the judge, while retaining a jury of a person's peers to determine the nuances and whether the patterns of behaviour and the words, whether on social media or elsewhere, are defamatory. It is a public reputation that has allegedly been harmed so let us let the public decide whether that is the case before letting the judge decide damages. That is the hybrid proposal.