Michael Finucane (Fine Gael)

Many years ago I attended a European conference accompanied by the late former Deputy Liam Lawlor and many others. On that occasion I discovered what a larger than life character Liam was and what a sense of humour he had. In all the years since, when I met him that sense of humour never deserted him, despite his being involved in tribunals. It is with a certain sense of sadness today that we all reflect on how he died tragically thousands of miles away. I extend the sympathies of my party to his wife Hazel and family.

In that context, last weekend was a very bad weekend for a certain section of the media. Most of us were disgusted and appalled at the type of media frenzy that seemed to descend on certain people regarding the facts surrounding the case. In the past there have been many approaches to this House from the media to relax the libel laws. Reflecting on the weekend, I compliment the maturity of RTE. Even though some in the House criticised RTE last week, it did not enter into that type of media frenzy and did not speculate on the events surrounding Liam's sad death. While representatives of the newspaper in question have apologised, much damage has been done. I very much regret that in a situation like this people do not empathise with the people affected by such tragedy — the victims have wives and families in many cases. Whereas all of us entering into political life accept that in the context of the "slings and arrows of outrageous fortune" Shakespeare described we perhaps suffer at times from unfair criticism, we all try to protect our wives and families from this type of unfair criticism. I very much regret what happened over the weekend. It is unfortunate.

We know what is happening within the media. There seems to be extreme competition between the tabloids and broadsheets. If we are going down the road the media in England have gone down over many years, I seriously regret it. There are probably certain pressures applying now to establish a press council. My party would support the establishment of an independent press council.

Over the weekend it was not right for Mr. Flood, as the ex-chairman of the tribunal——