Dermot Ahern (Louth, Fianna Fail)

There is no conflict in this regard. The start of the section states that a person who, apart from this section, would be so liable shall not be liable in damages in respect of a communication unless he or she makes it knowing it to be false, misleading, etc. or is reckless as to whether it is such. That, ultimately, is an offence. It is very narrowly drawn because it is a criminal offence. It must be. There is no conflict between civil and criminal liability in that respect.

I would not necessarily accept Senator Mullen's point that we are coming from behind. In a recent Transparency International report, Ireland scored highly in terms of corruption perception index. The report points out that Ireland's score, on its most recent corruption perception index published at the end of October, remained at eight out of ten and that Ireland sits in 14th place on the table of 178 countries. This indicates low levels of corruption and places Ireland in the same band as Sweden, Canada, the Netherlands, Australia, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland and Luxembourg, and ahead of countries in the next band - Austria, Germany, the UK and the United States. I would not accept we are coming from behind in this regard.