I have said many times there is a gap between the way we talk, as legislators, and the way we act. We are, for example, in the habit of frequently deploring the low regard in which the political process in general is held and the low regard for politicians in particular. While we go on talking, however, we are slow to do the very things that would help to rebuild public confidence and trust in the political process. I associate the libel and defamation issue with the political process because it is closely tied to political matters. Most of the people who have sued in the past have been politicians. Again and again we hear that journalists and newspapers have been gagged by the threat of libel action, either through direct threats from those affected or by their own legal advisers. We are told that some of the revelations now being made at the Mahon tribunal could have been in the public domain much earlier had it not been for the actual or feared threat of libel.