David Norris (Independent)

The Minister has been open, honest and interesting. I applaud the fact that he shared his views on this difficulty with the House. I am pleased he thinks the judges' following the Sullivan case was the start of the rot, followed by the infamous Reynolds case in Britain, which no Irish person could relish. The Minister indicated that the Judiciary is following such precedents in other jurisdictions, as it is entitled to do, in the absence of any prescription from the Houses of the Oireachtas, which we are doing. The Minister has suggested an elegant and sophisticated approach in which we appear to do what the newspapers want but tie it around with so much red tape that they will find it difficult to enter this defence. We must legislate for this area but I would like us to do so that we can close it down. As the Minister said, truth is at a premium. If we allow newspapers to tell lies, they will be happy so to do and it will be damaging, especially with the impact of the British tabloids in this country. The judges will not follow these precedents if we legislate effectively and tie their hands. The judges only interpret the law, we originate it and it is up to us to do our best.

Further down the section is this business which I believe is lamentable. The Minister spoke about broadening out the concept of public benefit, etc., to cover the entire population and so on. However, in section 24(2) it is narrowed down again in a manner that raises questions. Subsection (2)(a)states:

For the purposes of this section, the court shall, in determining whether it was fair and reasonable to publish the statement concerned, take into account such matters as the court considers relevant including any or all of the following:

(a) the extent to which the statement concerned refers to the performance by the person of his or her public functions.

In other words, one can tell lies about people in public life and this can be construed as something of a mitigating factor. I do not see the logic of that, although perhaps, in one sense there is. On the Order of Business today, for example, there was an interesting series of exchanges about drugs and whether the approach should be to hammer down as hard as possible the American style war on drugs or to liberalise them by going towards decriminalisation and so forth. I can see a case, for example, if a Minister was taking a hard line on drugs and was then discovered every Saturday, in the potting shed, smoking joints and taking cocaine. At that point, fair enough, the Minister should be made responsible to public opinion. However, as regards this bald statement, "the extent to which the statement concerned refers to the performance by the person of his or her public functions", what has that got to do with the price of eggs? Why should that be allowed to dilute the necessary and primary element of truth? I cannot follow that.

I would inform the Minister that this is possibly unconstitutional. When the Constitution talks about vindicating a person's good name, it is very strong in this regard. It is one of the great things in Éamon de Valera's Constitution.