Brian Lenihan Jnr (Dublin West, Fianna Fail)

That is the point I wanted to make. This can relate to only one distinct item. In Senator Norris's example of a newspaper organisation that wages a campaign against an individual, which is so common in public life and in some areas of private life too, each publication on separate days is a fresh and separate cause of action. I am open to considering whether this can be taken into account in respect of damages when we discuss them later in the Bill.

This issue is different, however, because it concerns publication to a multiple audience. The best example might arise in the broadcast media. RTE might make a documentary on the activities of a businessman which is defamatory about the person's business practices and that person might launch promptly a defamation action and, more surprisingly, bring it promptly to hearing and obtain damages. This should occur under this new legislation and we must legislate for what we envisage. If the person calls various persons with whom he did business to show how the defamatory statement impacted on him and obtains an award of damages but the same programme is re-broadcast 18 months later on the basis of a privately made video, is that a fresh publication for libel purposes? Can the person sue a second time on the same libel because a fresh set of merchants have emerged who distrust him as a businessman as a result of seeing the programme and are unaware that he had already taken a libel action in respect of it? That is the mischief the section tries to address. I agree with Senators Regan and Norris that we must consider the wording more carefully to confine it precisely to those circumstances.