Brendan Ryan (Labour)

I encourage them to do so within the limits within which the Minister and I agree, about which the journalists would not have much to say.

It is perfectly acceptable for the media to be very critical of politics but it is a bit rich for us to be accused of undermining democracy when we criticise the media because that is not the case — we are actually strengthening it. It is extremely important to challenge the one-sided idea that we must take whatever is thrown at us but if we suggest that a media report is unfair, distorted, unbalanced or selective, we are accused of something else which is untrue. None of the institutions of the State which are sacred or central to democracy work perfectly and nothing will work perfectly if no one criticises it.

The Roman Catholic Church lived with the illusion for many years that it was a perfect institution because it was above criticism, particularly in this State. The best thing that ever happened to the church was the realisation that, like every other institution in the State, it was made up of humans who made mistakes and who, in some cases, did dreadful things. It is far better for having the vigour and challenge which goes with a free society, whatever its illusions, than if it was left to its own devices.

I look forward to the media's response to the Minister's challenge. I am glad that he has made it clear he is not interested in a statutory press council. He is correct about a properly functioning press council. However, we return to the issue of what we do with those sections of the media which choose to absent themselves from these structures and ignore codes of practice. My view is that is a function of the responsible media is to deal with them by telling the truth. I share the Minister's view about letting the people know the facts in order to be safe.

I do not agree with the Minister about self-regulation, although self-regulation with a vigorous input from outside the profession is a very fine thing. I am a member of a self-regulated profession, namely, engineering, although it is not as tightly self-regulated as the legal profession — we never quite managed to get that sort of legislative protection. Nevertheless, I am sceptical about it. It is very difficult to separate self-regulation from self-protection. There is an issue there.

In a debate about freedom, access to the news and ideas, the Government's job of filleting the Freedom of Information Act calls into question for many of us whether that commitment is more rhetorical than real. There was nothing in the Freedom of Information Act which had previously operated that was undermining anything to do with the security of the State or anything else. Rather, it was an embarrassing inconvenience in many ways and it was adjusted and filleted to make life less difficult and make Government less accountable. To a degree, that very action suggests that we must still be wary about where the real intentions of the Government lie.