Matt Carthy (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)

Again, there are potential concerns here that are perhaps not envisaged in the Bill. We need to be incredibly careful. In terms of corporate profit-making entities, on the face of it, one would think that if a company has been defamed, one would automatically see an impact on profit margins or turnover. I am sure it would not take too much imagination to consider where there could be anomalies in that. Sometimes when talking about corporate entities, we think about big corporations but a corporate entity could be a local shop. We know in these cases that reputational damage can happen over a long period. One scenario might be that someone could defame a shop in a local town by spreading malicious rumours or printing something and while the shop would lose current customers, other customers would come in because of growth in the local population and the bottom line would not necessarily be affected.

It is important to be mindful of that. As I say, I am much more concerned about the definition that is in place for not-for-profits because it is much harder then to define serious harm. For example, the Minister and I are members of political parties. Our parties of which we are members could fall under this criteria. If our parties were to be defamed, how would you prove serious harm? Would you come back after the next election and show a certain percentage drop in the vote or a lower percentage? How would you do that? That is why there is a need for a little bit of thought on this section.

The Minister will appreciate that I am new to this Bill and following it so I was not through all the permutations in the pre-legislative scrutiny but it just struck me when I read this section for the first time that there are potential issues here. I would like the Minister to give his assurance that he has considered all of those potential issues and perhaps agree to have a look at this to ensure they do not become more contentious once the Bill is enacted, if it is to be the case we move forward on that basis.

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