Results 13,361-13,380 of 18,736 for speaker:Michael McDowell

Seanad: Defamation Bill 2006: Committee Stage (Resumed) (21 Mar 2007)

Michael McDowell: I know the Senator was.

Seanad: Defamation Bill 2006: Committee Stage (Resumed) (21 Mar 2007)

Michael McDowell: The Senator took issue with Fintan O'Toole's article some time ago on the proceedings of this House. I am in the extraordinary position that Fintan O'Toole, for once in his life, agrees with my position on these matters. This gives me an uneasy feeling, not least because I remember on one occasion in the same column he vituperated against me for deceiving, lying and all the rest because I...

Seanad: Defamation Bill 2006: Committee Stage (Resumed) (21 Mar 2007)

Michael McDowell: I goose-step around the place and do all of these things. All of this is written by people who have, apart from access to columns, little or no talent in life, apart from inhabiting houses of poor design quality and so on. I think it was in a controversy between Denis Franks and Ulick O'Connor that one of them likened the other to a sparrow picking at the droppings behind the dray horse of...

Seanad: Defamation Bill 2006: Committee Stage (Resumed) (21 Mar 2007)

Michael McDowell: No, I am referring to some of them. When they write that I am a Nazi, a fascist or this, that or the other, it is puerile. I am a liberal and a republican politician. I have stood up for liberal values more coherently than most of them. They like to go back to some kind of student, undergraduate mental approach to politics, where they liken me to some kind of fascist person. They should...

Seanad: Defamation Bill 2006: Committee Stage (Resumed) (21 Mar 2007)

Michael McDowell: One author in The Irish Times announced they had not yet met somebody who intended to vote in favour of the referendum and that it would be trounced by a margin of at least three to one. It makes one wonder in what society they move. If they have not met 80% of the population, it makes one wonder what effete little lives some of them must live. I have said that much.

Seanad: Defamation Bill 2006: Committee Stage (Resumed) (21 Mar 2007)

Michael McDowell: I feel much better. I come back to the point we are discussing, namely, whether it should be open to the court in the context of a correction order to give a direction as to the form and extent of such an order. What Senator Maurice Hayes is proposing is that the law should be less directive than this and that, effectively, it should be up to the newspaper editor to choose the norm and...

Seanad: Defamation Bill 2006: Committee Stage (Resumed) (21 Mar 2007)

Michael McDowell: I have no problem with so-called pinkos or their views. If one had an allergy to pinkos, one would never read a newspaper in this country. However, I have a slight degree of contempt for that class of the community who have abstracted themselves to a moral plain higher than the one rest of us are on, who know a moral issue 1,000 miles away but who regard profits, employment and risk taking...

Seanad: Defamation Bill 2006: Committee Stage (Resumed) (21 Mar 2007)

Michael McDowell: Exactly. There are people who think that they can write about moral issues and social justice day in, day out and at the same time effect a complete disdain for and ignorance of what makes a company profitable, innovative and successful, what drives a company, etc. so that matters such as incentive, profit and motivation are all issues for lesser beings than they who live on a cloud where...

Seanad: Defamation Bill 2006: Committee Stage (Resumed) (21 Mar 2007)

Michael McDowell: ——in Ireland, that these people live on a level where if a company goes out of business, it shows how evil capitalism is and if a company is successful, it is another indication of how evil capitalism is. They live in a different world where the social order, underpinnings and economic substructure of society are a matter on which either they express naive, ideological views when they...

Seanad: Defamation Bill 2006: Committee Stage (Resumed) (21 Mar 2007)

Michael McDowell: There is nothing wrong with effete, but effete is what it is. If we are to label people as pinkos, etc., why can we not add in the little word "effete" while we are at it? If one believes in liberal economics and liberal politics, one should be willing to embrace both. What I regard as contemptible is this middle class self-hatred that success is something which we in Ireland do not...

Seanad: Defamation Bill 2006: Committee Stage (Resumed) (21 Mar 2007)

Michael McDowell: In my time I have had to give visas to persons to come from Cuba to get medical treatment in Ireland and, therefore, I would not get too excited about that. I am just making the point that if one is to be consistent about human rights, one must be consistent right across the world and one must be consistent about what is happening in China. Today the editor of an Internet site got six years...

Seanad: Defamation Bill 2006: Committee Stage (Resumed) (21 Mar 2007)

Michael McDowell: We must be consistent about this. What I find is the effete, pinko commentariat are very excited by one set of injustices and blind to another. I try to be equally opposed to infringements of civil liberties, whether coming from the right or left. That is my position in life and that does not make me something else. I will consider further refinements to this section on Report Stage. I do...

Seanad: Defamation Bill 2006: Committee Stage (Resumed) (21 Mar 2007)

Michael McDowell: I concur with Senator Mansergh. The excesses of salaries and bonuses paid in some areas can leave one slightly shocked, especially in respect of publicly quoted companies. However, I think that is a fault of shareholder power rather than a weakness elsewhere. There is no doubt that excesses exist in the capitalist system but I make the different point that we should not idolise failure...

Seanad: Defamation Bill 2006: Committee Stage (Resumed) (21 Mar 2007)

Michael McDowell: I am not.

Seanad: Defamation Bill 2006: Committee Stage (Resumed) (21 Mar 2007)

Michael McDowell: One must remember that jurors are judges of fact. While it is true they take an oath and are obliged to act collectively, nonetheless they are judges of fact in a particular case. Irish law gives jurors a function in assessing damages in certain cases such as assault, fraud and other related matters to avoid the scenario in which although one person establishes the facts of a case and...

Seanad: Defamation Bill 2006: Committee Stage (Resumed) (21 Mar 2007)

Michael McDowell: In such circumstances, a judge might be quite sympathetic to a newspaper. Although he or she might have disagreed with the jury's decision, as it decided there was a defamation the judge would proceed to award damages. Such a judge might believe a matter to be comparatively trivial although the jury might have decided that in the circumstances, it was not trivial. In a defamation action,...

Seanad: Defamation Bill 2006: Committee Stage (Resumed) (21 Mar 2007)

Michael McDowell: Therefore, in this context, direction in respect of damages means the legal basis on which jurors are to proceed. This is important because jurors must be told they cannot go mad and cannot simply choose any old figure, thereby bankrupting the newspaper and teaching it a lesson.

Seanad: Defamation Bill 2006: Committee Stage (Resumed) (21 Mar 2007)

Michael McDowell: Jurors cannot be so informed because a jury's function is not to bankrupt a newspaper but to compensate the plaintiff. Jurors must have their function explained to them. When juries assessed damages in personal injuries matters, a doctrine applied, and in so far as I am aware still applies, namely, there are certain sums of money for general damages that should not be exceeded in respect of...

Seanad: Defamation Bill 2006: Committee Stage (Resumed) (21 Mar 2007)

Michael McDowell: Yes, I am talking about general directions. The judge will be able to bring the jury's mind to matters which will help members make a judgment which will not be overturned on appeal. If an accusation that Senator Norris took a bribe appears in a newspaper——

Seanad: Defamation Bill 2006: Committee Stage (Resumed) (21 Mar 2007)

Michael McDowell: If such an accusation that Senator Norris took a bribe is made seriously——