Michael D'Arcy (Wexford, Fine Gael)

It is long overdue. We have struggled with this for far too long and we need to get it through the Oireachtas as quickly as possible. I was watching television some time ago and saw news of an enormous award in the region of over €900,000 to a gentleman from Sligo. The sum of €900,000 for somebody's character to be defamed seems an incredible amount of money. During the debate on that award by a jury, people made a very clear association between an award of €900,000 to someone for defamation and some of the paltry awards made to people who have been assaulted in the streets, be it a civil case taken between two individuals or a criminal case. Certainly one would not get anything in the region of hundreds of thousands of euro let alone an amount that comes close to €1 million. We must have a look at this aspect.

There is a constitutional right to one's good name with which nobody could disagree. However, there has always been and should always be checks and balances in every system. The checks and balances in respect of defamation were the courts but with the award about which I have just spoken, the checks and balances have become a bit skewed. We must put in place something that is reasonable and fair. Awards of that nature seem incredible.

I want to touch upon the matter raised by Deputy Tuffy in respect of journalistic standards that applied to the reportage of the tragedy that happened to the Flood family in Clonroche. I speak as a Deputy from the constituency of Wexford. While I did not know the members of the family who are now deceased, I know other members of the Flood family. The reportage can only be described as shameful. I was appalled to see what was reported in respect of that incident. Damien Tiernan's letter went a small way in terms of professionalism towards trying to redress what happened. The reporting was disgraceful. One cannot defame somebody who is dead and this effectively gave media outlets the opportunity to do and say as they saw fit. Some mechanism must be brought in to reign in that type of irresponsible journalism. I compliment Damien Tiernan as a very responsible member of the NUJ. It was some small help to those of us from Wexford who felt so awful about the Flood family and those unfortunate events.

The journalistic standards in that case were very low. Due to the fact that so many media outlets are cropping up all over the place, be they local, national or international, there seems to be much more drive to have copy. It is all about getting some version of copy. It does not have to be true but it must be vetted by the legal advisers of the media outlet as long as it does not bring them into conflict with somebody. Standards are slipping. One now has the Internet, blogs, Bebo and YouTube, as well as the old standard media outlets and local and national newspapers. There is now also Sky Ireland and so many other media outlets. They must get copy. As we saw yesterday from our visit to TV3, it takes something like one hour to produce one minute of television, which is an incredible amount of work and cost. It puts incredible pressure on media outlets to get coverage and their space filled, regardless of whether it is airtime, viewing time or copy. Each profession now seems to have a newspaper and a number of magazines. It is absolutely incredible.

Checks and balances lie in the courts but they have become skewed. I agree with Deputy Tuffy about privacy legislation. While there were concerns about what was going to come forward, we need to bring something forward. We cannot just kick it to touch and leave it out there because the privacy legislation is also another check in respect of the defamation of individuals by media outlets. The French President, Nicolas Sarkozy, and his new wife, Carla Bruni, sued for privacy while they were in the UK. The legislation seems to be in place in other jurisdictions in respect of the Privacy Bill. We do not always have to reinvent the wheel. If legislation is enacted in other jurisdictions and is working well, we should take the opportunity to mimic it, introduce it here and ensure we have further checks and balances on the question of defamation, so that people do not always have to go to court to seek redress.

The area of what I call celebrity journalism is also important in the context of this Bill. This type of journalism is resulting in the proliferation of media outlets. Most of this so-called journalism consists of a photograph with a caption and very often the captions can do more damage than lengthy articles. Celebrity journalism does not provide us with news. It is not serving the public interest in any way, although there seems to be an appetite among the public for this type of journalism or copy. The point remains, however, that if someone wishes to seek redress, he or she should not have to go to court to obtain it.

The defence of a fair and reasonable comment on a matter of public interest is being created in this Bill. I am always somewhat cagey about the term "public interest". I recently read a book about Mr. Barack Obama. When Mr. Obama was running for the Illinois State Legislature several media outlets successfully sued to ensure that the divorce proceedings of his opponent could be opened up to public scrutiny. The media outlets argued that the information was a matter of public interest but that is questionable. While there will always be matters of public interest, the courts will determine the extent to which such a defence can be considered. In that context, the notion of the legal accordion might apply. The interpretation of the courts could be very wide or extremely narrow. Incredibly, the same thing happened when Mr. Obama ran for the United States Senate. His opponent was a divorcee and another media outlet successfully sued, in the public interest, to open up the divorce proceedings file.

Given the Obama examples, the concept of the "public interest" is one about which I am concerned. We do not know how the courts will interpret the defence of a matter of public interest. I would be very cagey about this area. Indeed, I have heard the Acting Chairman, Deputy Cregan, express concern regarding these matters previously. When we create a defence of a matter of public interest, we must be very careful. I wish to sound a note of caution here because we could be creating something that will become a Frankenstein in time. Unless we get very clear, tight details on the matter, I would be very slow to enact that particular provision.

There are many other issues that are relevant to this debate but my colleague, Deputy Joe Carey, is anxious to make a contribution before time runs out. I am sure I will have other opportunities to discuss the issues further.

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