Maurice Hayes (Independent)

I am grateful to Senator Walsh for allowing me share his time. I have an interest to declare as a director of Independent Newspapers but I do not speak for them or for the National Newspapers of Ireland. I had the privilege of spending a day with the Minister at the conference referred to earlier and I would like to assure Members that I did not regard it as a cosmetic exercise. People even more hard-nosed than myself in the newspaper industry were impressed by the Minister's approach and his openness, and I congratulate him on that.

Regarding Senator Walsh's comments about paranoia, I spend a lot of time talking to journalists and I constantly tell them that nobody up there likes them either. They are almost paranoid, and the Minister better have regard to that. There is a slight danger in generalisation in that some Members of the Oireachtas are more hubristic than others and I do not believe we would all want to be judged by that standard.

We talk about journalistic standards falling but there are very good journalists working in this country and elsewhere and the objective should be to try to raise the standard professionally. If that were done, it would remove many of people's other concerns.

The change in the libel law is important, not in the interests of the newspapers, or indeed the Dáil, but in the public interest. Ten or 12 years ago, in news rooms in Dublin, I remember being told, by name and specifically, what was going on in certain places that people could not deal with. Sadly, those names included both politicians and officials. An issue arises in that regard to which I will return.