Michael McDowell (Dublin South East, Progressive Democrats)

The provisions of section 9 are based on what was in the Whelan report and probably also the Law Reform Commission report. The particularity idea is not a random thought of my own. The purpose of this provision is to bring reason to the definition of a class of persons. We must be reasonable in this. I would prefer to cut down these types of inferential libels to the minimum. If a person is to be found to be defamed, it should be clear to everybody who reads the newspaper in which the defamatory statement is made, for example, that an act of defamation has taken place. The notion that even the maker of the statement could have no idea who he or she is defaming and that more than one person could claim to be the person defamed strikes me as contrived.