David Norris (Independent)

I welcome the Minister but was disappointed in his speech, which was pretty limp and failed to address the serious problem of standards and ethics in journalism. There are very few of them around. I have been a paid up member of the National Union of Journalists for many years. For three and a half years I worked honourably for what could be described as a tabloid newspaper. Since 1982 I have warned, in this House and elsewhere, of the malign influence exerted by people like Rupert Murdoch. I knew I was taking my life in my hands politically for doing so and I will probably be punished for what I am going to say today because we are brazenly told this is what happens.

I ask the Minister to address not only the bullying of public figures and private individuals and the invasion of their space by the media but also the bullying that takes place in every newspaper office. I have proof of this practice. The worst aspect of this bullying is that the people who presented me with the proof are terrified of their editorial staff. They have begged me not to identify them. I am also in some difficulty because some of the matters I would like to raise are, or will shortly be, sub judice.

The Minister spoke about the relationship between the media and politics. I am all in favour of a free investigative press but, with some honourable exceptions, it has not lived up to this standard. The Minister stated that the political system and the media must remain as separate as possible for the good of both. Why then did the editor of one of the tabloids tell me that what was happening to me in the media was payback for standing up for the victims of the invasion of privacy and, more particularly, for what I had done in respect of the Defamation Bill 2006, the first version of which Senator Walsh and I forced to be withdrawn? It is a lovely relationship between the media and politics if they can bully us as our masters. Ten years ago, I was in the Cathaoirleach's office when Donie Cassidy was in the Chair and I was the only person who stood out against the editors.

The Minister must be joking about the Press Council when he suggests it is of any use. It is not even as useful as the Press Complaints Commission in Britain, and the chairperson of that body has acknowledged it is a farce. I advise those who want to know about bullying not to look to me because I may be biased but instead read The Journalist, the magazine of the National Union of Journalists, which arrived in my post-box today. The owners and editors of the newspapers did everything they could to prevent journalists from having privacy because they were terrified to give evidence. These were the very groups that were understandably seeking anonymity for themselves. The general secretary of the NUJ, Michelle Stanistreet, stated that a journalist would have to be a brave person to spell out what life is like working for his or her current employer. There are fears that journalists who blow the whistle could render themselves unemployable in the future because they would be marked out as disloyal or untrustworthy. I have that in writing from people who are afraid to talk about the issue openly.

Our newspapers published editorials calling for independent regulation of every professions but their own. They are the exception. The Minister put it well when he stated: "[t]he Press Council, an independent body drawn from and run by the print media industry, is facilitated by legislation in that members are granted some additional protections under defamation law". How wonderful. It is self-regulating and there is no problem with conflict of interests. We protect them because the Minister brought back the defamation law.

In his statement to the Leveson inquiry, the lawyer, David Sherborne, accused newspapers of illegally accessing private voicemail messages, bribing employees into divulging personal information, blagging sensitive details through deception and trickery, blackmailing vulnerable or opportunistic individuals into breaking confidences about well-known people, blatant intrusion into the grief of victims of crime, vilification of ordinary members of the public unwittingly caught up in such events, hounding various well-known people and their families and friends purely to sell newspapers and bullying those who in seeking to question these practices were merely exercising the same freedom of speech behind which much of this behaviour was shielded or excused by the press. I firmly believe that all those practices can be found in this country. Some of those who gave evidence boasted about what they had done. Has the Minister sent anybody to represent the Irish victims of these newspapers at the Leveson inquiry. Will we conduct an inquiry of our own?