Ruairí Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

There is a considerable amount in this Bill with which we will all agree. A lot of us will look for balance and something that works from a point of view of people have a right to maintain their good name, ensuring that we allow for freedom of speech and do not inhibit responsible journalism. We know that is an absolutely necessary part of the democratic process. An awful lot of this is the outworking of public consultation. We also want to see consistency, which is sometimes lacking.

Deputy Daly dealt with the issue we have around the abolition of juries in High Court Defamation actions. That falls into one's right to a jury of one's peers to make determinations. Deputy Daly also spoke about the proposals that the belief that has been sold around reducing insurance premiums and the absolute failure with regard to that, as we have seen all of the legislation that has changed in latter years. We also know there are backlogs in courts but these issues need to be addressed and action needs to be taken on them. We do not want to inhibit people's rights if there is no need and there is no particular gain in doing so.

There is the requirement for solicitors to inform clients of alternative dispute resolution options, including mediation, before issuing defamation proceedings and obliging parties to have considered those options. While there may be caveats in certain sets of circumstances everyone would say that is sensible. If a person is defamed the correction must be published with equal prominence in the defamatory publication. We have all seen instances where that was not the case. This is straightforward. The idea is that if an action can be taken early and in a very fair way then an awful lot can be avoided. The plaintiff or defendant may lodge an offer of settlement in court which will be taken into account when determining costs. Reforms of the defence of fair and reasonable publication on a matter of public interest are needed to make it simpler and clearer and there is more work to be done. In general, there will be an element of support with regard to this. There is also the reform of the live broadcasting defence. This is when a contributor unexpectedly makes a defamatory comment during a live broadcast provided the broadcaster shows it took reasonable measures before starting the broadcast to prevent that from happening. That makes absolute sense. Mistakes will happen but we need to make sure these bodies are kept accountable and they have to be given an easy means of resolving problems and mistakes. Once again, it is about fairness and balance.

The insertion of a new part into the Act to deal with strategic lawsuits against public participation would have to be balanced against a person's right to defend his or her good name. With regard to the statutory notice of a complaint process to make it easier, quick and cheaper to notify a publisher about defamatory online content and request it to be taken down, we might see some issues around the operation of that. I believe some work needs to be done and there are still some issues with disclosure orders. There needs to be a complete acceptance that the legislation and reform of this legislation is absolutely required. We must also show that regular people see they have the right to these sorts of protections because it is sometimes seen that it is those who have power and are privileged can take defamation cases. We need to make sure any reforms deal with any financial barriers for ordinary people to have the right to fight for their good name. That is a legitimate ask.

With regard to defamation, we are in a very different world from 2009. We have all seen plenty of commentary during the last while. Whatever about entities such as newspapers or broadcasters, the unfortunate thing is these generally can be held to some account and this is a means of ensuring fair rules apply in being able to do that. However, we have a gigantic job to hold social media companies to account. We have seen the Digital Services Act and the Digital Marketing Act, the European Commission will have a part to play, we have Coimisiún na Meán and we are looking at an online code of conduct. Do I see anything that gives me great hope at this point? No. We have all seen everything from defamation right through to disinformation, misinformation and the old one of, "I am only after hearing", or "somebody told me", and then an absolute lie, misinformation and even beyond that. We have people who are, on some level, more than slightly unhinged and literally record themselves shouting and screaming at people. We are talking about companies such as Meta, TikTok and I do not know how we will deal with WhatsApp and Telegram. We need to find a means of dealing with them. It is about having this legislation to ensure we have a means to deal with defamation but we need to look at the online space and at the companies that have optimised algorithims for money.

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