Matt Carthy (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)

Section 6 refers to the "harm to the reputation of the body corporate" in the context of a not-for-profit organisation. This section proposes limiting this to instances whereby publication "has caused, or is likely to cause, serious harm to the reputation of the body corporate." As I indicated earlier, there is a high standard and barrier in terms of defamation of an individual. This presents it at a much higher level for a body corporate. I refer to not-for-profit corporate bodies. The Minister will be aware that a lot of these groups do incredible and crucial work in our communities. Sports clubs, for example, can be reliant on the goodwill of their local communities for all manner of supports on a local level, in such instances where goodwill is at risk. I am concerned as to the scope of the definition of "serious harm".

I am equally concerned that an incident whereby a single defamatory statement is not adjudicated to have caused serious harm, but forms part of a series of such statements over a period by different parties. Are we to say that comparable statements only become actionable if or when they are individually the straws that break the camel's back, despite the fact that serious harm may have been caused by successive compounded statements, even by different individuals?

I have concerns about this. It seems to be an unjust approach and is potentially ripe for a lack of clarity as to what may or may not be defamatory. We have a different standard, essentially, for entities versus individuals. In terms of not-for-profit organisations at least, the current definition seems to be clearer and more practical. Will the Minister speak to the justification for the new section 12(2) inserted by section 6 and what he envisages will be the outworkings of this? I ask that in particular as I am not aware of any slew of cases from non-profits in terms of the definition. What problem are we seeking to actually solve by this? Is the Minister considering bringing forward amendments to this section on Report Stage?

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