Ivor Callely (Fianna Fail)

I welcome the Minister's comments and understand his point of view. I look forward to the proposals he will make on Report Stage. We should not lose sight of what Senator Hannigan said. In fairness to the Irish media, the majority of outlets are not bad. On occasions, however, members of the media have stories building up for weeks and choose to contact the public figure concerned at short notice to inform him or her that the publication in question is running with the story. We should consider the issue in the context of the interval between the commencement of the story and the point at which the public figure was given an opportunity to respond. The Minister finds himself between a rock and a hard place in terms of what would be deemed to be reasonable in this context. We should not leave this matter to the court to determine. If information has been gathered over weeks and months, the word "reasonable" requires that the person who is likely to be defamed in the article should be given a similar or appropriate period to respond adequately to the material. I accept what the Minister has said and ask him to come back on Report Stage with a comprehensive response.