David Norris (Independent)

I welcome the Minister to the House but I do not really welcome the Bill, although I will probably be a lone voice in the latter respect. As long as I have been a Member of this House, there has been pressure from newspaper proprietors and editors to make life easier for them. I can understand that because they are human beings and have their own interests, but it would be a great pity if we gave in to them. I know it is the Christmas season but this looks very much to me like turkeys queuing up to vote for Christmas.

I am not impressed either by the Bill or the proposal for a press council. The Minister has a reputation in the Lower House of being a rottweiler, and has been described as such. This is not the work of a rottweiler, however; it is much more like the work of a chihuahua. I know the intention is to rebalance towards newspapers so that they can do more investigative journalism. That is the pious aspiration that comes along with it. I am all in favour of investigative journalism and the exposure of hypocrisy and evil, but let us look across the water and see what has happened there since Rupert Murdoch acquired The Sun newspaper. It has been driven by profits and that is what we will get here.

The press council and press ombudsman will be toothless. The proposed press ombudsman does not deserve that title. The Minister knows well that the post will be quite unlike that of any other ombudsman. For example, it will lack all significant powers to compel, produce witnesses or impose financial penalties. In addition, the ombudsman will be appointed by this wonderful new press council, which is not independent. Is that not an irony?

The Minister may take a principled position with regard to whether or not a council of this kind should be independent and whether various groups should be self-regulating. He is entitled to do that and he is a man of intellectual honesty and consistency, but the newspapers are not like that. There is not a newspaper in this country that has not called for independent regulation of every other profession, except themselves. What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, so I would like the newspaper editors to tell me what is so precious about their little profession. I am a fully paid up member of the National Union of Journalists, although I may not survive its next annual general meeting. As a journalist, I have seen both sides of the libel issue. I will put some of my experiences in this regard on the record in due course.

Under the terms of the Bill, we will have a press council established by the industry. There will be a figleaf comprising five industry representatives and six representing the public interest. The five will include a representative of newspaper owners and editors, while journalists will also be represented, in addition to six people representing the public interest. There will be a majority of one on the amorphous side but, as anybody familiar with juries will know, it is easy to sway the others if one has a block. Therefore, the situation is not as balanced as it seems to be.

We are told that publications which sign up to the code of practice will be governed by it, but what about the ones who do not sign up? How useful is a practice that governs only those who sign up to it? Murdoch-style newspapers are filthy little rags and some of them are printed in this country. They are not subject to the code of ethics of the National Union of Journalists because their proprietors make damned sure their journalists are not allowed to join the NUJ and their houses are non-union in the manner of Mr. RupertMurdoch. How will we control the newspaper proprietors with weak and fluffy legislation?

The general secretary of the NUJ is a decent and honourable man who has done Members some service by producing a document which, while it puts the best possible face on the proposed press ombudsman and press council, is none the less weak. It states, for example, that when a significant inaccuracy, misleading statement or distorted report or picture has been published, it shall be corrected promptly with due promise. That is fine. It also states that while comment, conjecture, rumour and unconfirmed reports shall not be reported as if they were fact, newspapers and periodicals are entitled to advocate strongly their own views on topics. This is also fine. It continues: "In reporting news and information, newspapers and periodicals shall strive at all times for truth and accuracy". There is a great deal of this.

The Press Complaints Commission in Britain is useless. After it was established, The Sun newspaper deliberately and grossly libelled Elton John. It was fined £1 million but did not give a damn because its circulation increased. British newspapers do not give a damn because the Press Complaints Commission is toothless. They invade people's privacy, lay siege to their houses and name and shame them. Perhaps the Minister will remember an example of naming and shaming when a man who shared the same name with a convicted paedophile had his address published and was subsequently killed. This is the kind of extremely dangerous behaviour in which a certain type of newspaper engages.

In 1993, Sir David Calcutt in Britain stated:

The Press Complaints Commission is not .... an effective regulator of the press. It has not been set up in a way, and is not operating a code of conduct, which enables it to command not only press but also public confidence.... It is not the truly independent body that it should be.

This is the type of organisation we will get. The British body even has much stronger elements than the proposed body.

The code of conduct of the National Union of Journalists states:

A journalist has a duty to maintain the highest professional and ethical standards. A journalist must at all times defend the principle of the freedom of the press and other media in relation to the collection of information and the expression of comment and criticism. He-she shall strive to eliminate distortion, news suppression and censorship.

Distortion occurs throughout the press. Last week, Independent Newspapers, on foot of a serious political report from Europe, deliberately distorted and lied about the entire document. It was perfectly clear that rendition aeroplanes had regularly landed at Shannon Airport. The question was not whether they were full of torture victims, yet the headline in one of the Independent Newspapers titles was: "Torture planes did not land at Irish airports". How close is that to the truth?

Let us examine the way the company dealt with the Shell to Sea campaign. It falsified statistics from a commissioned report and personally vilified a Member of the other House, Deputy Cowley, who was singled out and details of his income printed on the front page. It would have been remarkable had the Deputy been the highest earner in the health system but his earnings were ranked down the table. What relevance is this information? It was published to discredit the Deputy.

Does the Minister remember the way Eamon Dunphy was treated when he left the Irish Independent? One could not pick up a newspaper without reading details of the colour of his hair, how much hair he had and the kind of shoes he wore. Former President, Mary Robinson, appeared in every part of the Irish Independent, from the weather forecast to the social column and fashion reviews. In other words, powerful interests target people they do not like. This behaviour may not be coverable by the legislation but it is the ethos with which we are dealing. I am not saying that these newspapers are not good at times in other respects — the quality is very mixed — but the motivation involved in them is disgusting and contemptible. People are afraid to say this because they know they may well be the next target.

I remember when a colleague of the Government Members, an MEP, won a libel action against a newspaper, which then waited for 18 months before it got him.