Michael McDowell (Dublin South East, Progressive Democrats)

The point is that if it was excessive on day one it cannot become reasonable on day two simply because a second jury has had another canter at it and has handed out damages, assuming the evidence is the same or roughly the same in both cases. There needs to be some sense in all this. It would be extraordinary if, for instance, Senator Norris wrote a food critique of some restaurant and a jury awarded €500,000 against him, he appealed to the Supreme Court, which stated the award was absurd and could not stand and sent the case back to the High Court, the next thing was that €750,000 was awarded against him. At some stage the Senator would ask when the circus would end and when somebody would intervene to suggest the award should be of the order of €100,000 or €150,000.