Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the review of and report on the Defamation Act 2009. The review was a legislative priority of the Government when it took office in 2020. It is important that the Government and State strike the balance, referred to by other speakers, between our competing sets of rights as individuals protected by our Constitution and the European Convention on Human Rights.

Following the review, the Cabinet has to work on a new set of defamation laws for Ireland. There are issues to be dealt with in this regard. Among the key objectives are putting an end to juries in defamation cases and providing easier access to justice for individuals whose reputation has been unfairly attacked. One of the measures I am most interested in is the one that will make it easier to obtain a court order to get beyond the anonymity of somebody who is abusing or harassing somebody online.

Just a short while ago, I got an alert on my phone from The Irish Timesindicating Deputy Carroll MacNeill has endured her share of harassment. Just a few weeks ago, following a speech I made here in the Dáil, an individual went online, a gunshot was fired and threats were made. We are in the realm of that repeatedly in the body politic. There are many ways in which someone can express frustration with how we politically represent our people or constituencies. If individuals want to be blunt, they may by all means be so, but there is a reasonable threshold. Sometimes that threshold is exceeded. When that happens, it is over to An Garda Síochána. Some people, like Satirical Soldier, might live in a pseudo-world in which they sit behind a computer, snack away on junk food and type hate messages and whatever they want to say, but I live in the real world, as do the Minister and others in this Chamber. We have An Garda Síochána and various mechanisms but it is important for the law to get beyond the veil of anonymity behind which so many have hidden for far too long.

I am aware of a local media outlet that had a very important and fair story to tell that I knew about and into which I had an input. However, on the night of publication a very large industrial heavyweight sent in all sorts of legally threatening letters to prevent the article from being printed. I felt that went way beyond the bounds of what was reasonable. In preparing legislation, we need to give our journalists, some of whom are here today behind the scenes, powers to tell the important stories fairly, clearly and in the public interest.

In 2011, a farcical situation unfolded in Britain when a very prominent Premier League footballer who had had an extramarital affair took out a superinjunction to protect his name and identity. Over a four- or five-week period, various tabloids published photographs of him that had blacked out his eyes and the strip of his football team. The whole world knew who the footballer was. It just became farcical. At the time, I was at a talk at which a solicitor in the room was asked whether there was such a thing as a superinjunction in Ireland. We certainly have injunctions, and a superinjunction is theoretically possible. At times, larger companies and those which have the financial wherewithal to protect their names seem to have more powers of protection than the ordinary citizen. The law needs to ensure equity in this regard.

I was defamed a few years ago, but I remember being talked down from taking legal action by my solicitor because by the time I would have gone through the courts to clear my name and gone through the process, the person at the other end might not have paid out. That happens far too often when people go to a local solicitor with a claim of defamation.

We need to get the balance right to ensure there is freedom for reporters to accurately represent what is happening in the country and to tell the story they need to tell. Protection needs to be built in, particularly insofar as the online world is concerned. There can be no more anonymity. Our hate crime legislation should deal with some elements of that. It is important that it does not become a case of someone having the money and someone else not having it. There has been far too much of that in Irish law and, indeed, in international law in recent years. We need to get all of those balances right as the Government goes about legislating. I thank the Minister.

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