Seán Crowe (Dublin South West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I am introducing this Bill with my colleague, Teachta Cullinane, to ensure that journalists are not discriminated against while doing their job for reasons of professional affiliation or status. The Bill amends the Broadcasting Act 2009 to make it a breach of contract or licence under the Act to prohibit a member of the National Union of Journalists from communications media for reason or reasons of occupation, employer, company or employment status. It is a timely Bill as we have seen increased attacks on the rights and freedoms of journalists worldwide. In the past five years, the Council of Europe's platform to promote the protection of journalism has reported 256 serious violations of press freedom in the member states of European Union, including the murder of 14 journalists. The murders of Daphne Caruana Galizia in Malta in 2017, the rape and murder of Viktoria Marinova in Bulgaria in 2018, and the murder of Ján Kuciak and his fiancée in Slovakia in 2018 dramatically raised public awareness in the European Union of the twin crisis of journalist safety and impunity for the murders of journalists.

All of us here can remember the murder of Veronica Guerin in 1996. Her killing reverberated around the country, led to convictions and the creation of the Criminal Assets Bureau. Ireland needs to be a global leader in protecting media freedoms. We need to stand up for media freedom and the rights of journalists at this crucial time for independent reporting. We can start with this Bill and ensuring that broadcasting organisations cannot discriminate against journalists simply because of their professional affiliation. We cannot sit back and allow the current situation, where journalists from certain newspapers and media companies are banned from appearing on the radio stations of one of the biggest media organisations in the country simply because their multimillionaire owner is angry and upset at the coverage he receives from these newspaper and media companies. This is positive and proactive legislation to address discrimination and I call on all Deputies to support it when it comes before the Dáil.

See this speech in context