Results 1-20 of 18,806 for speaker:Michael McDowell

Seanad: Defamation (Amendment) Bill 2024: Committee Stage (Resumed) (22 Oct 2025)

Michael McDowell: I was interested by the Minister's evocation of the debate that occurred here when I introduced the Bill for what became the 2009 Act. He referred to the then Senator Norris's response and remarks. There was a vogue at the time to describe me in the media as a rottweiler. I have some very interesting cartoons over my mantelpiece at home showing me doing various things to other people's...

Seanad: Defamation (Amendment) Bill 2024: Committee Stage (Resumed) (22 Oct 2025)

Michael McDowell: Yes. I cannot remember who the judge was.

Seanad: Defamation (Amendment) Bill 2024: Committee Stage (Resumed) (22 Oct 2025)

Michael McDowell: That left the law in that condition. There were people who said this was a correct decision of Mr. Justice Ó Caoimh, and others who said it should be done by the Legislature and not by a High Court judge. There were suggestions that we were not to slavishly follow decisions of the House of Lords in England, whether we agreed with them or not, where they changed the substantive law of...

Seanad: Defamation (Amendment) Bill 2024: Committee Stage (Resumed) (22 Oct 2025)

Michael McDowell: -----on three occasions. In future, is that to be material in determining whether the story as published should have a defence under the revised section 26? If it is to cease to be material, that is fine, but let us tell the people that. We should let the people of Ireland know that, in the future, adverse inferences can be drawn if you say nothing. Let us tell the people that is the...

Seanad: Defamation (Amendment) Bill 2024: Committee Stage (Resumed) (22 Oct 2025)

Michael McDowell: There have been a few.

Seanad: Defamation (Amendment) Bill 2024: Committee Stage (Resumed) (22 Oct 2025)

Michael McDowell: That is a good point.

Seanad: Defamation (Amendment) Bill 2024: Committee Stage (Resumed) (22 Oct 2025)

Michael McDowell: What about RTÉ?

Seanad: Defamation (Amendment) Bill 2024: Committee Stage (Resumed) (22 Oct 2025)

Michael McDowell: Before we put the matter to a vote, in fairness to Senator Mullen, he was not saying the purpose of this was preventative. He was saying that in many newspapers and out in RTÉ and various other places where publications happen, people would take a look at section 26 as it currently is and ask whether they are satisfying all these steps. That is what they would ask themselves. Is it...

Seanad: Defamation (Amendment) Bill 2024: Committee Stage (Resumed) (22 Oct 2025)

Michael McDowell: There will be no obligation to come back and say, two weeks later, that by the way the Garda has dropped the investigation. Section 26 as originally proposed may have been a bit nerdy in terms of setting out all the hoops that had to be jumped through, but that was done as a result of very close political pressure – I will use that phrase – to ensure we did not sweep away the...

Seanad: Statement by the Taoiseach (16 Oct 2025)

Michael McDowell: I welcome the Taoiseach here today and to remind him that it is now 12 years since he and I stood in the studios of TV3, as it then was, defending the existence of this House, and Mary Lou McDonald and Richard Bruton, I think, were proposing its abolition. That happened then and the people of Ireland thought that this House was going to be reformed. The people of Ireland thought that but it...

Seanad: Defamation (Amendment) Bill 2024: Committee Stage (Resumed) (15 Oct 2025)

Michael McDowell: No, I think I have said everything I have to say about amendment No. 5. I just want to make the point that the House was informed on the last occasion that there were concerns in the Office of the Attorney General about the seriousness requirement being introduced into Irish law on the basis that the good name of the citizen, which is an explicit right in the Constitution, might be in some...

Seanad: Defamation (Amendment) Bill 2024: Committee Stage (Resumed) (15 Oct 2025)

Michael McDowell: It was the Minister who introduced the question of insurance companies. He said he wished they would take a different and more robust attitude to claims of this kind. It was not me or any of the other Senators who raised that. He now comes in and says we cannot have a law which is dictated by insurance companies. In defence of saying that seriousness does not apply, he said that perhaps...

Seanad: Defamation (Amendment) Bill 2024: Committee Stage (Resumed) (15 Oct 2025)

Michael McDowell: Lasting.

Seanad: Defamation (Amendment) Bill 2024: Committee Stage (Resumed) (15 Oct 2025)

Michael McDowell: I am interested in the amendments proposed by Senator Higgins. Two things occur to me that we should consider at this Stage in this House. The phrase “is likely to cause” is itself ambiguous. The Minister has probably come across cases in his practice - I certainly have - where the term “likely” has to be interpreted. To a layperson, "likely" can mean...

Seanad: Defamation (Amendment) Bill 2024: Committee Stage (Resumed) (15 Oct 2025)

Michael McDowell: Perhaps this is a first, but I was looking at AI on my phone-----

Seanad: Defamation (Amendment) Bill 2024: Committee Stage (Resumed) (15 Oct 2025)

Michael McDowell: -----in the context of getting the legal meaning of the term "likely". It is stated that the term can mean "more probable than not" and that there is "a reasonable possibility". In answer to a question as to whether I could fall down the stairs, one could answer that it is a reasonable possibility. In answer to a question as to whether I will fall down the stairs, one could say that it...

Seanad: Defamation (Amendment) Bill 2024: Committee Stage (Resumed) (15 Oct 2025)

Michael McDowell: Section 11 is not agreed.

Seanad: Defamation (Amendment) Bill 2024: Committee Stage (Resumed) (15 Oct 2025)

Michael McDowell: If the Cathaoirleach wants votes all afternoon, Senator Craughwell said it was not agreed. Perhaps he was not heard.

Seanad: Defamation (Amendment) Bill 2024: Committee Stage (Resumed) (15 Oct 2025)

Michael McDowell: I have to say to the Chair that it is a section of huge importance. Rattling off sections in the way the Chair has is most unfair, especially if a Senator says it is "not agreed" and he is bulldozed out of the way.

Seanad: Defamation (Amendment) Bill 2024: Committee Stage (Resumed) (15 Oct 2025)

Michael McDowell: If the Cathaoirleach wants votes all afternoon on every comma in this Bill, he will get it now. If the House wants to go back to section 11, it is entitled to do so, as the Chair well knows.