Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Independent)

The Minister of State claims this is a restatement of policy rather than a new policy position. If this is the case why would the courts interpret it in any other way? It is clearly a change in policy - it must be.

Our point is that there is a lack of grounded policy in respect of copyright law as it relates to the Internet. What we propose in our alternative wording is that in the meantime, until we get to the point of having good grounded legislation, certain boundaries should be set. These would be such that the Data Protection Commissioner would require the court to notify the commissioner's office if it considers that the right to protection of personal data would be affected by the granting of an injunction. That was one of the points we made in our document. A second point was that the statutory instrument should state very clearly the case concerning freedom, for example, in regard to the Scarlet v. Saban case. People could then see what the statutory instrument contains and that would give some protection. In addition, it is not unreasonable to include a sunset clause in regard to when the primary legislation might be enacted.

The Minister of State mentioned the small guy. This measure could ruin, not the big people, but those on the way up, the intermediate people. If this were to go badly wrong it could ruin a person's prospects, for example, if there was a court injunction to which he or she had to contribute some or all of the costs.

Consider the Digital Hub where last year there were in the order of 18 new companies. As we all know, this is one of our bright spots, as is the artistic community. It is a question of finding the right balance. That small guy could be badly burned if the issue of awarding costs is not addressed. It is a potential David and Goliath situation. On one hand there is the big music industry, on the other a small intermediate person.

Those were the four principal points we stated in our draft statutory instrument. I would appreciate if the Minister of State were to return on those points and, in addition, let us know if there will be scope to reconsider this issue with a view to making changes before the measure is signed. We need to know the Minister of State's view on this, one way or another.

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