Matt Carthy (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)

I do not argue with the Minister about any of that and that is why we are not opposing this section. I will make one point. The Minister suggested that the media never go out of their way to lie about someone. Can I suggest that he is saying that with the luxury of being a Fianna Fáil representative? If he were a representative of my party, he would not be able to say that. There have been instances where media outlets have published downright lies about my party. They have done so knowing they were lies. No defamation case was possible because it was the entity of Sinn Féin, rather than individual members, that was defamed. So be it. I will defend to the last the right of the media to do their job of holding power to account. I accept there will always be instances where genuine mistakes are made. I do not in believe in penalising a media organisation or an individual journalist when mistakes have been made, provided that they have made every effort to ensure the truth was the basis of the information that was published.

We are agreeing on the outcome, but perhaps the Minister and I are coming at this with different experiences. As he rightly said, and this is important when we deal with all of this, the real threat to people's good character is not coming from a daily broadsheet or the evening news anymore. It is coming from anonymous actors who have, in many cases, malicious intent. They are publishing material that can be published much more widely than any traditional media could, and much faster. It is important when we are discussing these matters to be conscious of all of that.

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