Michael McDowell (Dublin South East, Progressive Democrats)

That would have been a different matter. The writer could have stated that the facts of a particular case warranted my arrest, but it looked like a statement of opinion rather than a statement of fact that I had done something unlawful. I tend to take these matters with a grain of salt.

It is important to have a system of law in which people's honest opinions are statable when they are based on facts. People's judgments on the consequences of matters that are proven or accepted to be true are only judgments. I accept that a commentator in the media gets much more currency for his or her judgments than someone who has to read some of this rubbish on occasions, and sit on a barstool and give opinions to three or four people who might or might not listen. I agree that sometimes the media are in a far more powerful position to express their opinions than an ordinary individual. Even accepting that, we must accept the proposition that honest opinion on the basis of facts, proven or accepted, should be the subject of a defence. We do not want to change the law fundamentally to make it less restrictive in this manner. I do not believe it is a defamers' charter to leave the law substantially as it is in that regard.