Mary O'Rourke (Fianna Fail)

Before I reply I wish to inform the House that a former Senator, Gordon Lambert, has passed away. The House will express sympathy tomorrow. I mention it now to give Senators an opportunity to prepare their contributions.

Senator Brian Hayes, Leader of the Opposition, asked for a debate on libel laws and standards in journalism. It is ironic that it took the invasion of the privacy of a member of the media to heighten the debate. The person in question was quite right to raise the issue because his privacy has been invaded. We could have bleated on forever and the issue would not have reached the level of coverage it reached when the other matter arose.

It is an outrage if anybody's privacy is invaded, whether the person is in public or private life. Such invasion is prurient and wrong. It belittles people to have their private lives laid out so that newspapers will sell, and that is what this is about. We had a debate on defamation in this House nine months ago. Now that the Minister is preparing proposals we should seek a further debate.

It is amazing that whenever we debate the issue of privacy and intrusion into people's privacy, it is linked to an expansion of the libel laws, which newspapers require. It do not know that that is necessarily an appropriate quid pro quo.